Warrior Rising
by Fae Faythe
Summary: After five hundred years in the Void, Warrior is finally free - only to find that her species is dead. She'll stop at nothing to find survivors of the Time War. That is, if high school on Earth doesn't slow her down.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who or any of its characters.

**Author's Note: **I would also love a Beta reader for this if anyone wouldn't mind. I just got into the series, but it is going to coincide with the TV show eventually and I don't want to be lynched by a fan-mob by butchering anything.

The figure didn't know how long she'd been there. She didn't know how she'd survived. There was a lot she didn't know.

She didn't like that.

But there really wasn't much choice in the matter. She was trapped. Caged, like an animal within penetrating nothingness. Not darkness, no, darkness would've been preferred – eyes, her eyes, could eventually adapt and change to darkness. But there was no dark here, no light either. Nothing. No matter, no weight, no atoms. And really, she shouldn't have been there either. It had been an accident, an attempt to save people that she loved, that landed her in the Void. That was what it was called – the Void.

The girl knew that escape was impossible. How were you to escape somewhere that didn't actually exist? How was she to escape when, technically, _she_ didn't exist either? All she had was her mind and at times she barely even had that. It was well-known that falling into the Void would eventually drive a person completely mad. There were times when the girl fell so far from the grip of reality that she wished for death. Anything to get away from the eternal nothingness. She knew it was practically blasphemy among her people to commit suicide, but if she'd been able, the girl knew that it was a serious option. She was gone, dead to her world, why should she still be living in this one?

In truth, she didn't know how long she'd been trapped. Sometimes it seemed like the explosion tat had sent her tumbling into the Void had happened only seconds ago, sometimes it seemed like years, millenia. Her only respite was her dreams. Dreams she shouldn't have been able to have, but she wasn't complaining. But her mind was deteriorating – she knew it, as she sometimes stopped being able to tell where the dreams ended and her hellish reality began.

"Daughter." The girl blinked, blinded by the sudden light, wrenching herself upward at the familiar voice. Impossibly, yes, but heartbreakingly familiar.

"Father!" she shouted, her eyes adjusting and taking in his face. She ran to him, then stopped short. "But – but you're dead," the girl whispered. "I saw you die." He was just standing there, suspended on something white – a cloud, maybe. The girl realized with a start that she was on a cloud as well. They were separated, but she could still see him.

"Yes, but that was just my body. My last, unfortunately. But don't worry, daughter," he amended quickly, seeing the pain flash across his dear girl's face before she could mask it, "I sacrificed one of my regenerations to place an imprint of myself in your ship. Only a partial imprint, of course, but enough to get this message to you." The brown eyes that she'd missed so much darkened. "Your ship is alive, trying to find a way back to you. And it has." For a moment the girl let herself hope, before clamping down on it. Hope was for the weak, hope was for those with options. She had neither.

"What do you mean?"

"There's a tear in the Void. I don't know what's created it, but it's your only way out. You're moving towards it as we speak, and when you get out, you should be teleported right into the ship. But you'll need to land; keeping the rip in the Void open takes a lot of power."

"But this is a dream. It has to be. How can I be sure that this isn't my own mind?" The girl wanted to believe, desperately she did, but she'd long since been able to tell the difference. It seemed just yesterday that she was home, before she'd woken up.

"Use your head. You've always been mentally strong – the strongest we'd ever seen. Feel your hearts beating. This is a dream, but it's real." For a moment the girl watched as the image of her father flickered, the dream going dark before returning again. "Ah," he said sadly. "You're approaching the rip. You'll wake up when you make it out." The dream destabilized again.

"Father, no! Don't leave me!"

He smiled, his eyes bright. "Oh, I'll always be with you. Whenever you need me just – " The girl didn't hear how she could call on her father. The dream evaporated, plunging her back into the endless nothing. But there was something different. Not light, this time, but darkness. Darkness speckled with the light of millions of stars. She'd broken free of the Void! She was in space.

Which meant no oxygen. The girl didn't panic – she'd been in worse spots before. Besides her father had said...

"Ow." He's said that her ship would pull her in. Gone was the vacuum of space. In it's place was the familiar control room of her trusty ship. Her TARDIS.

"Welcome back aboard," the TARDIS's automated voice said, as welcoming as a machine could sound. "I've missed you, Prodigy." Prodigy. That had been her name, or title, anyway. The Child Prodigy.

"That's not my name," she said firmly. "Not anymore."

"Then what will I call you?"

She didn't take very long to think about it. "I'm the Warrior. And I'm back, baby."


	2. Chapter 1

"Warning: crash landing imminent. Warning: crash landing imminent." Warrior blinked, her eyes swimming from the violent mauve lights flashing. The TARDIS repeated the message, more urgently this time. Warrior swore, jackknifing to her feet. The emergency sirens were blaring. Not exactly helpful.

"What's going on?" Warrior shouted over the noise. When had she fallen asleep? She didn't remember going to bed, nor did dreams mark the passage of time while she was unconscious. Unsettling. But the ship's words drew her attention.

"Power cells are depleted. I am running on emergency star-fuel." That wasn't good. Star-fuel was unreliable at best. At worst, they were already practically dead.

"Abandon auto-pilot!" Warrior ordered, taking the controls into her own hands and hastily switching off the emergency break. They going to fall right out of the sky if she didn't land the ship soon. "Set a course to the nearest planet!"

"May I inform you that – "

_"Just do it!" _Warrior said, slamming the gears into place, her fingers flying over the keyboard that controlled the whole of her TARDIS. A little different from the conventional models, but Warrior had never been one for conventions. The ship began to shake, rattling like a toy. "What happened to the pressure stabilizers!"

"Destroyed." Warrior cursed again. This landing wouldn't be her finest. She desperately plugged in more commands, pulling strings within the circutry to try and stabilize the landing as much as possible, but it was too little, too late.

"Hang on!" she yelled, grabbing hold of the control station. Warrior felt the impact before she heard it – a huge, bone-rattling crash that nearly wrenched her arms out of their sockets as the entire ship was tossed to one side. "Run maintenance scans." Warrior said once the TARDIS had finally stopped shaking, brushing herself off and doing a mental diagnostic to check for any injuries. She couldn't help but wince as the ship told her how many things were broken. At least the Chameleon Circuit was still functional. Landing on a random planet as a warship TARDIS probably wasn't the best idea. "Start repairs." Warrior said. "I'm going to go see where we are." She was confident in her ship's ability to keep her safe on a planet without oxygen – the shields, at least, hadn't been damaged in the crash. Warrior cautiously poked her nose out of the door and regretted it instantly. Something was burning and the smoke was making her want to gag. Houses were all lined up, all uniform and identical, running the length of a street. Warrior stepped out of the ship, smiling when she saw that it had changed to look like one of the houses. As far as emergency landings go, crashing on an abandoned lot in the middle of...Warrior's hearts dropped.

"Oh _damn_," Warrior cursed. "Where," she snarled, "exactly, are we?"

"Earth."

Warrior groaned. "Why didn't you _tell _me?"

"I tried. You cut me off." Was it her imagination or did her ship sound a touch smug? Warrior sighed, everyone had told her that giving her TARDIS speech capabilities was a bad idea and now she was starting to agree with them.

"Well next time we're flying towards _Earth, _just let me die." Earth. The one planet she'd never had times for. Useless little world, in her opinion. And humans. _Humans_. Stupid little apes, always sticking their nose where it didn't belong, always relying on the guidance of beings older, wiser and more powerful than themselves to help them out of tight spots. She never understood her people's – her father's – fascination with them.

Wait. Her father.

Her father, who had died in the War. Fire ignited in Warrior's veins. She needed to get back, aid the fighting.

"How long will the repairs take?" Warrior said. "And what's the status of the War? Are we winning?"

The TARDIS hesitated, something that had never happened before. "Repairs will not be made for two weeks, not in time to do any good."

"You're not serious." Warrior said, shocked. "Wars can be won by the last soldier standing!"

"You will do no good," the TARDIS repeated itself, and a holographic image appeared, an image of a burning world. It blazed in a global inferno before slowly, painfully collapsing in on itself.

"What does that have to do with the War?" Warrior demanded. "Were all those people innocents? Casualties?" The thought was repulsive, that the War had spread so far and wide that an entire world had taken the fall, but it still didn't explain why the TARDIS seemed reluctant to give her the status of her people – usually it wouldn't shut up.

"No," the ship replied slowly. "That _was_ the War. Our planet has perished."

"No, that's impossible! I was only gone for..." Warrior trailed off. She didn't know. She didn't know what year it was. She didn't know how long she'd been trapped in the Void. There was no sense of time there. "Oh, no."

"You were in the Void for approximately...five hundred and twelve years." Five hundred years, she'd been gone. _Five hundred years._

Warrior took a deep breath, willing herself not to panic. "When did the War end?"

"My data indicates that both species were destroyed shortly after you became entrapped within the Void." Warrior stumbled backward, the information hitting her as if it were an actual blow to the chest and in seconds the wall the only thing keeping her from collapsing onto the floor. "It also says that the war might've ended much sooner if not for your sacrifice."

"Where are the refugees? Chart a course for whatever planet is harboring them." Warrior said shakily, trying to keep it together.

"There were no survivors." The ship's interior spun and Warrior could barely keep herself from spinning with it. No survivors. No survivors. The two words pounded themselves into her head, an endless beat from a hellish drum. Her family, her friends, all dead. Destroyed. Warrior caught a glimpse of her face reflected off of the control screen, drawn and horrified, all hope gone.

But it wasn't her face.

Warrior looked closer, not recognizing the girl she saw there, touching her cheek, unnerved when the girl did the same.

"Did I..._regenerate_?" It was unnerving, trying to see the herself in the girl who was looking back at her.

"Yes," the TARDIS answered promptly. "You collapsed shortly after exiting the Void, the regeneration occurred while you still were unconscious." The new face startled Warrior into action. She wouldn't let this stop her. Not now, not ever. She was still a fighter, new body or no. Still a warrior, still a soldier. And a soldier never gave left their people behind, even when it looked hopeless. There had to be survivors, even unregistered ones. She refused to believe that they were all dead. Warrior took a deep breath. She had to keep it together. She _would_ keep it together. She would.

"Two weeks?"

"Two weeks," the ship confirmed. Brilliant. Two weeks on Earth. Warrior knew that she couldn't take two weeks of lethargy. She needed to _do _something – anything – to keep her mind busy, to stay strong. "May I make a suggestion?"

"Are you going to keep it to yourself if I say no?"

"No," the ship answered without hesitation. "This body looks to have matured to "teenage" age, according to Earth slang. About seventeen years, by human counting. My suggestion is that you accumulate yourself into the environment. Blend in until I am repaired."

"And how do you propose I do that?" Warrior snapped, impatient and tired of riddles.

"Simple. Enroll in high school."

* * *

"Class," the pasty-faced, shrill-voiced biology teacher announced. Warrior fought the urge to wince. She'd stared death in the face without blinking but her new first-period teacher's voice was giving her a massive headache. "This is Ivy War." The classroom filled with human children broke out in snickers at her name. It hadn't been Warrior's first pick, either. The TARDIS had insisted that the name – the shared name of a winding green Earth plant – was fitting. Natural. And then there was something about it matching her eyes. Warrior didn't understand why humans would name their children after a plant, nor how the name fit her, but she would give the plant one thing: it did match her eyes. Bright, spring green, different than the murky gray color that humans sometimes _called_ green, and so, so different than the deep brown eyes she'd had before. Her old body had been small in stature, small and blonde, easily overlooked on the battlefield – which, over time, Warrior had used to her advantage. Enemies didn't seem to pay her any mind until she cut them down, a solution that worked well for her. No one would accuse this body of being weak. It – _she_- was tall and lean, muscle-bound, but not overly so. Her hair, not golden and curled, as she was accustomed to, was long and pin-straight, an odd shade of brown that sometimes shone with a copperish light that Warrior had no name for. Whatever the color of her hair was called, it set of the vibrant green of her eyes. Warrior liked this new body. It was a body built for fighting. A body built for war.

Hence the surname. It seemed that Warrior now had a taste for irony – not to mention sarcasm.

"So, Ivy," the teacher said, her nasally voice ripping a hole through Warrior's eardrums. "Can you tell us a little about yourself?"

"Not much to tell," Warrior said smoothly. "I moved around a lot as a kid." That much was true. True, at least, until the War.

"How interesting. Now, if you would please take a seat...next to Avery." Warrior nodded and picked her way across the classroom to the proffered desk. The boy she'd been assigned to sit next to – Avery? Was it Avery, she'd said his name was? – glared at her as she took her seat. Warrior had no intention of differentiating any of the humans, but this one stood out in the stark florescent brightness of the classroom, like a black hole in space. He was completely made up of dark tones, from the shaggy black mop of hair to his attire: dark jeans, T-shirt and black jacket. He didn't try and start a conversation with her, which Warrior appreciated. Humans in general spoke far too much about far, _far_, too little. They boasted the grand superiority of their tiny planet, though the TARDIS had informed her that humans had recently discovered that they weren't alone in the universe about a year and a half ago. Warrior smirked. It was about bloody time!

"If you'll turn your books to page 394..." Warrior blocked out the teacher's voice. Human biology; she'd studied it as a child. "Ivy, I don't have an extra copy with me, but I'm sure Avery wouldn't mind sharing, would you?" Though the teacher smiled at him encouragingly, the boy only shrugged without looking at Warrior and passed the thick text over without a word. Warrior sighed to herself, flipping through the pages, absorbing everything. Her kind were all exceptionally smart, but Warrior hadn't been called the Child Prodigy for nothing. Readings and tests from her childhood indicated that her mental capacity was far higher than anything they'd ever experienced – even for the Time Lords.

_Wrong_, she thought to herself as she read the pages. _Wrong. Wrong. And, hey, wouldn't you guess it? Wrong. _Warrior didn't bother listening to the lesson, instead choosing to focus her energies on what she was going to do next. The genocide of her people pained her more than she'd ever experienced – more than she'd admit, even to herself – but she was a soldier. Warrior didn't put stock in emotion, she pushed it aside and pressed on. She refused to believe that her people had completely been exterminated. She'd survived, after all. There had to be more that had escaped the slaughter. Warrior's only consolation was that the Daleks had been destroyed too.

"Ivy, do you know the answer?" the teacher asked out of the blue.

"Helicase." Warrior answered immediately, without looking up. It seemed that one part of her brain, at least, had been keeping track of the lesson, even when Warrior herself didn't bother to pay attention.

"Very good!" the teacher crowed. "Were you in an advanced program at your old school?"

"Something like that," Warrior lied easily. That, and she'd just read the textbook in its entirety. The teacher murmured something to herself, nodding happily and moved on. Warrior still didn't look up, letting her mind wander. Soon she was flying through the stars in the control of her ship. All of her favorite worlds were laid out at her fingertips, ready to be explored, all accessible. But there was only one planet she wanted to visit.

Home. Warrior could see it all – until the vision was shattered by the sharp ringing of a bell, signaling for the end of class. Warrior leaped up, fleeing the room before the weight of her loss could overwhelm her. Her new body was more vulnerable to emotions than her old one, despite its tough exterior. So conflicting.

"Oi!" The sharp, heavily-accented British voice came from behind her, accompanied by an iron grip her her wrist. "You, Ivy!" Warrior spun, her lips pulled over her teeth in a snarl. "You left this in class." Warrior had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from flinging insults the boy's way. It was Avery, the boy who'd lent her that useless biology textbook. In his free hand was a piece of paper, completely covered in little drawings. Warrior stared. That was the notebook paper she'd left behind in class – she must've drawn them while she'd been daydreaming: inked landscapes of her homeworld, birds' eye views of other planets, all surrounded by the circular language of her people. Notes. She'd taken notes in her own language. Warrior felt a pang of longing and desperation – was she the only one left alive who would understand those symbols?

The boy, Avery, flipped the page over, revealing a detailed star map. Warrior barely withheld a gasp; she'd never been able to draw before. The boy looked like he wanted to say something, like it was important, but his dark eyes moved past Warrior, focusing on something beyond her for a moment before closing off completely.

"Hey, doll!" Warrior turned, barely withholding a grimace at the new, loud voice at her shoulder. A blonde girl with enormous curly hair was perched at Warrior's elbow – she only came up to her collar, at least. Then again, Warrior knew that this body was tall for a human female and towered over some of the males in the school at five Earth feet and eleven inches tall. Warrior wanted to clap her hands over her ears, sincerely believing that she'd stumbled into the only school on the entire planet that had amassed so many people with so many annoying voices. The girl's was loud and twangy, sending sharp pains through her head. "You must be the new girl. Ivy, isn't it?" The girl flashed her a blinding smile. "I'm Mary-Anne. I'll show you around; I'm part of the school's welcoming committee!" The perky girl's eyes fell on Avery and her whole demeanor changed, abruptly going cold and she sneered. "Shoo, freak," she said to him, gesturing to the long stretch of hallway. Avery glared at her, his black eyes giving away nothing and shouldered past the two girls without a word. As he passed Warrior he pushed the piece of paper into her hand. Warrior grasped the sheet, her long, pale fingers closing over it, and subtly tucked it into her pocket.

"Don't bother with him, sugar," Mary-Anne said. "He's an underling. Not one of us." Warrior wanted nothing more than to push past her and move on with the day, but her curiosity won out.

"Us?"

"Oh, you know,_ us._ The beautiful people. And, in your case, with my help, popular. You _are _pretty – you've got this whole Amazon warrior thing going on." Warrior frowned for a moment, briefly recalling her Earth mythology class in school. The Amazons were a race of women who fought to protect their villages, feared worldwide for their ferocity. Warrior preened, happy with the comparison. "All you need is some new clothes and you could be a real bombshell." Warrior stopped. What was wrong with her clothes? Though not as expansive as some of the travel TARDIS,' Warrior's ship still had an expansive closet, filled with clothes from all kinds of planets, all kinds of eras so that she could fit in wherever she went. And she liked her clothes: dark bluejeans, hunter-green T-shirt and supple brown leather jacket. What was wrong with that?

Warrior shook off the sudden wave of insecurity. She wasn't a real teenager, she wasn't even human; she shouldn't be feeling stupid. Warrior pushed those feeling to the side and shoved past Mary-Anne.

"Hey!" she protested loudly. "Bitch, what do you think you're doing?" Warrior didn't answer, just kept on walking. "I will _ruin _you! Your life is _over_!" _Please,_ Warrior thought. _My life ended the __day my people died._

* * *

"So how was your day?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Warrior said, collapsing into a chair.

"So you didn't make friends?"

"Well," Warrior said, cradling her head in her hands, "one girl has threatened to ruin my social life, whatever that is, and..." Warrior trailed off. She didn't want to mention Avery. He unnerved her, though she'd never admit it. Something about the way he looked at her – like he _knew_ something. Warrior quickly shook off the feeling of apprehension and pulled the sheets of notebook paper out of the leather rucksack she'd brought to store her books. "Start compiling these into a set course."

"Doodling in class?" the TARDIS teased. "Not exactly the way to make a good first impression."

"Right, because playing nice with the humans is what I'm worried about." Warrior snarked. "I know it's not complete, but this is where I want to go as soon as you're up and running. Just set the course, yes?"

"Affirmative," the ship confirmed. "And may I say, if we're going to be sneaking around hostile planets, you might want to keep up with your swordsmanship." Warrior had to admit that the ship had a point. She _was_ five hundred years out of practice. Warrior padded out of the control room, quickly changing into gear – an ensemble comprised completely of thin black leather, strong enough to withstand most attacks, but light, so that she could move freely. The poly-iron woven into the leather helped to repel any laser-esque attacks or energy beams, which was more helpful than she'd thought originally. Not many species just used plain old swords anymore.

But that had never stopped Warrior. She strode into the training room, moving past most of the weapons until she reached the sword rack. It only held one weapon, a long, thick broadsword. Warrior reached out, her blood humming with the anticipation of the fighting to come. The hilt felt familiar in her hands, but at the same time, there was something off. Something unfamiliar and wrong about it. Warrior went into her exercises nonetheless, flowing from one stance to another, hacking at invisible opponents. By the end she was sore, but unsatisfied. There was no rush that accompanied every swing of her sword, as she was so used to.

"We have a problem." Warrior announced when she got back the control room. "There's something wrong with my sword."

"You fought well."

"Something is wrong." Warrior insisted. "It doesn't feel right."

"Then," the TARDIS suggested, "make a new sword."

* * *

**So, if you can't tell, Warrior is a touch different from the other Time Lord (cough, cough the Doctor). She likes violence, hates humans and favors a sword. How does she fit in with the War? Please review!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I don't own this!

**Author's Note: **Thanks to all who reviewed!

* * *

Finding the equipment necessary for forging a new sword proved much more difficult than Warrior had anticipated. There was no metalsmith in the tiny town that she'd landed in, no forges, either. Apparently, in the day and age she'd landed in, people had their metalwork delivered, not hand-crafted. Lazy, complacent humans. Strangely enough, the high school was where she found her answer. The school had a metalworking class, just tinkering and making little things, but there were furnaces that could be made hot enough for her need – with a little tinkering, that is.

"What are you doing here so late?" a wizened old janitor asked Warrior when he found her standing in the hallway that night.

"No reason," Warrior said, a small smile ghosting over her face. "I just think that you'll be able to help me." She reached out with her mind, lighting persuading the old man to stay and stand watch while she worked in the shop. Technically, she shouldn't have been able to do it – most of her people could barely exert influence over another person even with physical contact, let alone from across a long hall. Warrior slammed the memories away. She was special, even among Time Lords, but that didn't stop them from – no. No. She wasn't thinking about that now.

"I'll be able to help you," the janitor repeated, his voice low and slow, his eyes glazed over as he ambled to the doorway of the metalwork shop, his mop stiff at his side as if he was a soldier standing ready for battle.

And he stayed at his post every night as Warrior worked on a new sword, sometimes until the early hours of the morning. She tried models from nearly every Earthling era, not to mention the designs from other planets that she tried and then scrapped. Rapiers, broadswords, even a khopesh, a military-grade sword from Egypt. Nothing felt right – none of them made her lust for battle, for the calls of her fellow soldiers, for the familiar, angry sound of metal clashing against metal.

Everything went smoothly until the eighth night, when Warrior got an unwelcome visitor.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Warrior spun, startled, seeing a shadow at the door. What had happened to the janitor? Then she remembered: he'd stayed home, sick. Another human weakness: their damnable susceptibility to disease. They were so fragile that Warrior often wondered how they had survived for so many millenia.

For a moment, Warrior burned with irritation. She was trying a new model tonight, splitting the metal into _two_ blades instead of one, making them both thinner and much, much sharper. The first blade already laid on the table, cooling, but its twin was just being finished – and was still blindingly hot from the fires of the forge. Warrior snatched up both swords, leaning into a defensive position on instinct. Something clicked, then, and a savage smile quirked Warrior's lips up in the corners, her emerald eyes burning. Her blood sang the joy of the union between the Time Lord and her weapon. This was good. This was _right_.

The intruder, however, wasn't. Warrior surged forward, faster than any human could move, shoving the boy up against the wall, her blades crossed and angled at his throat so that she only had to flick her wrist to take his head clean off.

"Avery?" she murmured in recognition, taken off-guard for a moment before she stuffed the reaction away. The boy didn't answer anyhow, just stared at her defiantly. Warrior gripped the hilts of her swords and leaned in. Already, sweat was beading on Avery's neck from the searing heat of her blades. The temperature didn't bother her, but it had to be causing him pain. Good. Pain was one of the very few things humans responded to. "Listen up. This is how this is going to go. I'm going to leave right now and you're never going to speak of this again. And if I even _think_ that you've told anyone, I'll hunt you down and I'll kill you. You got that?"

No answer. Warrior hissed under her breath and jerked the blades closer to his neck. Already, blisters began to form across the red, sweating skin. "Answer me," she growled.

"I got it." Avery said, his voice even, void of any emotion, not even fear. Warrior backed off, pushing away from him with a shove and striding out the door without a word – hoping that he couldn't see the unease on her face. She had the strangest feeling, like the boy _knew _something. Something vital and something that he definitely shouldn't have. As Warrior hurried back towards her "home," both swords safely stowed away, she tried not to let it bother her. It was earlier than she was used to be going back – only eight o'clock. The sun had just barely set, leaving the empty street filled with a murky kind of twilight.

"You're home early."

"You are a ship, not a home." Warrior reminded the TARDIS yet again. It had taken to calling itself a house, or a home. It had been on Earth too long. "And take a look at these," she said, laying the new blades out on the table.

"Katana," the ship said.

"What?"

"Those are katana. Earthly in origin, they were the sword carried by the ancient Japanese humans, also known as samurai. For a samurai to have twin katanas was quite rare."

"No, they're not human." Warrior protested immediately. "They're not made of Earth metal."

"The design is of Earth." Did the TARDIS sound smug or was it just her? "I think this world is rubbing off on you."

"Shut up," Warrior snapped. "Or I'll disable your communication functionality." It was an empty threat. Because if she couldn't talk to her ship...well then, she really couldn't talk to anyone. It didn't matter anyway. Just three more days and she could get off this miserable rock and start searching for her people.

But of course, that didn't happen as planned. Warrior was eager, eager to be off, eager for the day to end, but also anxious. She'd never put much stock in premonitions or fate, unlike the rest of her kind – she hated to think that she wasn't in control of her own future, Time Lord or no – but ever since Avery had seen her in the metal shop, she'd had this feeling, like something was going to happen, something big and something bad.

Sometimes it was painful being right all the time. Warrior was doodling, adding to her star map in class when suddenly all of the lights went out.

"Don't worry," the teacher assured the class, "I'm sure that it's just a blown fuse." Or not.

"Attention children and teachers." A voice sounded over the loudspeaker. Warrior's head snapped up. She knew that voice, and it sure as hell wasn't human. "You have something we want. More specifically, _one_ of you has something that we want. You have thirty minutes to give him or her to us or you'll all die. The countdown begins." Warrior stood still as the class erupted into chaos. One girl screamed, shrieking that she didn't want to die. The teacher tried to calm her students, but it was clear that she was just as scared as they were. Warrior stood slowly, groping around in her book-bag for the hilts of her twin swords.

"Ivy!" the teacher said shrilly. "Please, go to your seat." Warrior turned, her green eyes flashing dangerously. The teacher gulped at the ancient fury in her eyes and sat down, eyes focused on her desk, terrified.

"Shut up." Warrior snapped, and pulled her swords out of her bag, kicking open the door in order to keep her hands free. She had to figure out what they wanted before the whole building got blown halfway to hell. What – who – in a high school would have something that aliens would want. And what aliens? Warrior began absentmindedly swinging her swords, trying to think. Aliens who spoke in rasps, so they had to be reptilian, serpentine, maybe. They wanted someone, but wouldn't say who. All clues, if she was smart enough to put the pieces together.

"What are you doing out here?" Warrior spun. Avery. What was with that boy and popping up in the most unpleasant of places?

"Oh, go away, human," Warrior spat without thinking. "What are _you_ doing out here, anyway?"

"I'm the one they want, _alien._" Warrior froze. Avery sneered. "Oh, you thought I wouldn't figure it out? Typical alien superiority. You're all the same." He knew. Warrior cursed at herself – she should've trusted her instincts and killed him when she'd had the chance.

"Not so much," Warrior replied, regaining her composure quickly. What would they want with this unremarkable human boy? He was stubborn to an absurd degree, but that didn't seem like reason to threaten an entire school to extort his help. How could he help aliens anyway? Aliens...

"Oh _damn_!" Warrior exclaimed, her sword coming up to block a vicious jab before she even knew what she was doing. In a second motion, she flicked her wrist, sending the knife spinning out of the boy's hand. The thin blade snapped under her boot. "Thneeds. Dammit, I _hate _Thneeds." Warrior looked at the crushed knife under her foot; she'd been barely aware of her actions, too busy puzzling out who the intruders were and what they wanted with Avery to notice him try to attack her. "Nice try, human boy, but don't start fights that you can't win."

"What are they...these Thneeds, you called them."

"Better question: what do you have that they want?" Warrior countered.

"Why should I tell _you_?"

Warrior smiled, in motion only, there was no joy in the gesture. "You should tell me because I'm deciding whether or not to kill you just to piss them off. And believe me, I will. They're obnoxious little buggers and making them angry is a hobby of mine." Or it used to be. "Now, answer the question." Avery didn't reply, only glared at her and yanked down the collar of his black T-shirt, exposing the smooth skin underneath. Skin that should've been blackened and blistered from exposure to her newly-heated blade. "Oh. That's interesting." So he could heal. Everything suddenly clicked into place. The Thneeds' ships ran on magma that they'd pick up on a stray world here and there – but if it was broken, a boy who could heal himself would be the only one who could get the engine up and running.

"Well," Warrior said, a plan forming. "I guess the only thing we can do is give them what they want." For a moment, she could've sworn she saw a flash of blind terror in the boy's fathomless eyes before it vanished, to be replace by a look of cool aloofness.

"That's it? No grand alien plan?" Avery mocked, his accented voice doing a nice job of hiding his panic.

"Well I can't let them blow up a school," Warrior said, shaking her head patronizingly.

"So you give me up?"

"No," Warrior said with a falsely angelic smile. "Better. I give _me _up."

"Hello!" Warrior said, cheerfully entering the front office where the Thneeds had holed up. It didn't surprise her to see the dead, broken bodies of the school's secretaries littering the floor. Thneeds needed to eat too.

"Who – _hssss_ – are you?" one scaly, reptilian monster hissed, its tongue flicking in and out. "You are not – _hssss_ – who we wanted."

"Yes, yes, I know, but, see, I'm so much more fun than some old human. And besides, you never did say who you wanted. Typical, your type never were ones for specificity, Mary-Anne." The Thneed's face contorted in surprise when Warrior figured it out – but it wasn't hard. You just had to keep an eye out for clues, was all.

"And who are you – _hssss_ – who knows so much – _hssss – _?" The Thneed that was Mary-Anne asked, recovering quicker than her kin.

"I've had lots of names," Warrior said. "You might've known me as the Prodigy." She smirked at the sudden recognition in their scaly faces. Quickly followed by blinding hate.

"Kill the Time Lord!" The cry went up, growing into an unintelligible wail. Warrior surged forward, cutting down two of the beasts before their brethren could make a single move. In an instant the noise ceased and there was nothing but absolute silence. And the whirr of the air-conditioner.

"Later!" Warrior said with a snappy salute before turning on her heel and running like hell out of there. The Thneeds followed without hesitation, their battle cries filling the air like noxious gas. Children and teachers all hid in the classes while Warrior led the murderous aliens out of the school on the best chase she'd had in years. If she could just get back to the TARDIS...

"What did you _do_?" Avery demanded, standing stupidly in the hallway. Warrior didn't pause, but grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him along, lest he be run over by the Thneeds, or worse, captured. That would not be good at all. More to the point, how had he gotten out? Warrior had locked him in a closet to keep the stupid boy from interfering. Clearly, she needed to use stronger locks next time.

"Shut up and _run_!" Warrior shouted, towing Avery behind her until he got the picture and picked up the pace. They burst through the school's front doors and Warrior took the lead, weaving in and out of the suburban streets.

"A house?" Avery gasped when they finally made it. The hoard of angry aliens was only few feet behind them. "This is your big idea?"

"Oh for the love of...get in!" Warrior shouted, shoving the human through the door, then jumping in herself and locking it down. Warrior blew past Avery, who just stood, staring, slamming her fingers down on the control panel, jerking the ship into alertness.

"Override repair lockdown." Warrior dictated.

"I am not yet fully functional."

"I don't give a damn!" Warrior said. She pulled up scans of the exterior of the ship and the Thneeds were all piled on top of the "house," trying to claw their way in. Good. Everything was working out the way she'd planned. "There's enough power for one jump. I don't care where we go but we have to go _now_!" Warrior sagged gratefully into a chair as the familiar and sorely missed sound of the engines rang throughout the control room. She was traveling. It felt more normal than anything else had in her miserable two weeks on Earth. It almost felt...good.

Until she remembered her passenger.

"Oh. I forgot you were here for a second." Warrior said without apology.

"It's not a house." Avery said, staring at the softly lit, violet interior. For a moment, Warrior saw her ship as she might through naive, human eyes. The whole room was illuminated with purple light – not mauve, mauve was for warnings, but the color always made Warrior feel close to danger – and speckled with gold receptors fields so that she could pick up any kind of readings that were floating around through time and space. The control center of the control room was a raised platform covered in all kinds of knobs and dials, not to mention the holographic computer screen that appeared at whatever angle you were standing at, showing various readouts and other miscellaneous data. Looking at it from that viewpoint, yeah, Warrior guessed that it might be a little shocking. Even other Time Lords were surprised when they were welcomed aboard her ship – which wasn't that often, actually. Warrior had completely redesigned her TARDIS as soon as she was old enough to learn the mechanics of the machinery. Or, until she was old enough to steal the schematics, that is.

"No," Warrior said, waving her hand in front of the human's face to snap him out of it. "Not a house. A ship. A TARDIS, it's called. My TARDIS."

"Pleased to meet you," the ship said, its mechanical voice on its best behavior. Psh, showing off for guests, typical.

"And it talks."

"Yes, yes. Talking ship." Warrior said impatiently. "More to the point is that the ship just helped get rid of all of the aliens that wanted to kill you. Now, my question is why?" Warrior scrutinized the boy in front of her, looking at him with new interest. Despite his healing capabilities, he looked entirely human.

"I heal. You know why."

"No, _human_, I meant why can you heal?" It wasn't even genetically possible for humans to heal themselves. The capability just wasn't in their DNA. So how did he do it? "Run scan." Warrior said. Avery protested loudly as he was swarmed by a wave of nanogenes, analyzing his genetic structure. "What the bloody hell was that?"

"Nanogenes." Warrior said without explanation. "Read out results," she told the TARDIS.

"Part of his DNA is of Zyion origin." Warrior's eyes flicked to Avery, who'd gone still and pale. That made sense – Zyions were renown for their ability to blend in to society, heal, living out their lives on other world since their own had died. Actually, they were known to have one of the longest life-spans of all the species in the universe, Time Lords included. But one thing didn't sit right with her...

"Where's your family?" Warrior asked. Zyions had a tightly-knit social structure, with children at the center, revered for being the next generation, keeping the species alive. A Zyion family wouldn't just dump their child on Earth and leave. Unless...Warrior snorted, an ugly sound full of derision. "They left you didn't they? You're not completely Zyion, so they left the half-human bastard on Earth with the rest of the savages. Classic." Avery didn't answer, but his eyes had gone completely dark, lifeless, even. Without a single word or glance back, he stormed out of the control room. Warrior didn't bother calling after him. She didn't care if he got lost – she didn't want him on her ship in the first place!

"That was tactless," the TARDIS said, it's mechanical voice cold, almost sounding as if it was reprimanding her.

"What do I care?" Warrior snapped, pacing. She _hated_ being criticized, especially over something so trivial as the feelings of a human. "My name's not The Tactician. I saved his life and he's lucky that I even bothered to do that!"

"You two are more alike than you might think."

"Yeah?" Warrior challenged. "How do you figure?"

"You are both the only of your kind." Warrior stopped dead, refusing to believe it, all the fear, doubt and grief she'd bottled up on Earth crashing over her in a thick, black wave. "The Zyion DNA...it's not natural, it's been artificially implanted." Warrior turned, eyes searching the holo-screen for the readouts, looking for some way to prove the ship wrong. Humans didn't do well with genetic modification – maybe why they'd lasted as long as they did: their DNA wasn't in constant danger of unraveling, as it was with species that modified their genetic codes. "He _was_ human, when he was born." The TARDIS paused. "The pain must've been excruciating." Warrior knew a little something about pain. And was all too familiar with the process of having one's genes tampered with.

She stopped, hating her own weakness – she shouldn't be feeling badly for what she'd said. She shouldn't. She was a Time Lord. She didn't have to bow to such feeble emotions as guilt.

Her new body told her differently.

"Oh damn." Warrior cursed, slamming her palm into her hand, a habit she'd picked up somewhere along the line that she couldn't seem to break. "Keep us on course and alert me if something happens." Warrior stalked out of the control room, off to find the human who's feelings she'd hurt.

* * *

_**So what do we think? Please review!**_

_**~Fae**_


	4. Chapter 4

Warrior skulked through the halls of her ship until she finally found her sullen passenger – strangely enough, holed up in the Observatory, gazing intently out of the window, his back to her. One of the walls was entirely made of glass and allowed one to view the Time Vortex as the TARDIS hurtled through it. Although all of the ships had one, most of her people didn't like to see the whole of time and space flying past of them while they traveled.

Warrior loved it.

She paced nervously around the doorway, not knowing how to begin. Apologies didn't come easy to her, not in this body, not in any body. She didn't accept accept defeat well and she considered her flagrant slip of the tongue a defeat, if a small one, especially since she had to say that she was sorry. As Warrior crept closer to the boy, she felt a pang of kinship with him – they were both alone – before shoving it away. She'd done him a favor, a colossal favor, that was it.. But even Warrior couldn't ignore that fact that she had be lonely. More than she'd even realized. But that meant nothing to her, she told herself. Nothing!

"That's the Vortex." Warrior said, standing behind Avery and looking out at it. She remembered first laying eyes on the Vortex as a child. So, so long ago. "It's how I travel."

"What's your name?" Avery asked, still not looking at her. Warrior started. What did her name have to do with anything? "Your real name?"

"The Warrior." Warrior answered. "That's my name."

"My, don't we think highly of ourselves?" The sarcasm was biting, but it was no less than she deserved. Warrior didn't smile as she sat down beside him.

"Well I am good at what I do. And if you think that's bad, you should've been around for my _old _name." Warrior paused. "You can't go back there, you know that? The Thneeds were destroyed when the TARDIS took off, but there's more of them out there and they're nothing if not persistent. And they never forget an insult, which is why they still remember me." From more than five-hundred years ago.

"I've got nothing to go back to." Avery said, shrugging. Warrior felt a stab of pity for him before she choked it off and stuffed the emotion away.

"Look," she started awkwardly, "about what I said...I, um, I... Look." Warrior took a deep breath, trying to start again. "Sometimes I say things I don't mean. I _did_ mean what I said about you being stupid for breaking out of the closet. I meant that."

"You never said that."

"Really? Because I was sure I mentioned it..." Warrior said, smirking. "But the other bit...I..."

"Planet incoming." Warrior released a breath she hadn't known that she was holding. She could always count on her ship to bail her out. Warrior peered out the window to see where they were landing and then swore violently, making Avery jump.

"Of course," she snarled. "It had to be here." Out the window there was nothing but a barren, red-dusted wasteland of twisted, craggy rock. If you knew what to look for – and Warrior did – you could see the paths woven into the dirt, the larger stalagmites that were hollowed out as buildings and homes for the indigenous.

"Where are we?"

"Shut up." Warrior snapped at him, pacing. The Slave World. The TARDIS had automatically gone to the planet that would provide the necessary fuel. She couldn't blame her ship, not really, but it was just damn inconvenient. The Slave World had the radiation they needed, but it was routinely sucked out of the planet and stored jealously, to be traded for whatever they needed. "We need fuel. My ship needs fuel. And I can get it here."

"I?" Avery said, standing. "No, I'm coming with you. That way I can make sure that you're not just taking off and leaving me here."

"Please, you could live on this ship for years without a problem." Warrior said. "And you are staying."

"I'm coming." Warrior hissed, whipping her sword out and pressing it to his neck before Avery could blink.

"This planet is called the Slave World," she said, her voice deadly calm and scarily quiet. "I could kill you right now and it would be a mercy compared to the treatment you'd get out there, because, guess who they enslave? That's right. Humans." Warrior didn't bring up the fact that she looked human. The Slavers would find her much harder to subdue. If they could at all – which she sincerely doubted.

"Well, guess what, you look human." Avery said, ignoring the blade that stabbed into his Adam's apple as he talked. He'd just heal anyway. "And even the great _Warrior _might need some backup."

"You're infuriating." Warrior said, withdrawing her blade.

"And you're overconfident. Now if you're done insulting me, let's go."

"Don't look at me." Warrior said, her lips barely moving as the two moved across the red rock. "Don't look at any of them, just stare at your feet like you're scared of everything."

"How can I understand them?" Avery asked. Warrior wanted to smack him. Didn't she just say to keep quiet?

"The TARDIS translates everything. So they think we're speaking their language too. Now shut up and look scared!" Warrior knew that it wouldn't be a stretch to pretend, especially now. She knew that she must look like a monster to him – almost ten feet tall, all craggy skin that might've blended into the terrain if she hadn't been so huge, with three eyes plopped haphazardly in the middle of her forehead and two twisting horns protruding from her scalp. But it was all just an illusion that she'd created, projecting into every mind that laid eyes on her. And that included Avery's. Avery, who was twitching uncomfortably because Warrior had had to shred his shirt into little strips – she wasn't the only one who had to blend in. But even so, he still stood out, an onyx amongst the dull rocks. Most of the slave-humans here were permanently dyed red from the dust, their skin and hair matching shades of rust. Warrior tried to hide her human behind her own illusion but it was too much. Even the dull Slavers would've known that their minds were being tampered with then.

"Greetings." Warrior stopped to look up at a huge male Slaver towering over her. They'd reached the rock where the radiation was stored. She returned the formality stiffly. "What is your purpose here."

"Routine inventory check." Warrior lied smoothly. _No,_ she thought at him when she saw the male start to argue. _Don't argue with me. Let us through._ She pushed the thoughts out with her mind, making an effort to add another layer to the illusion: an air of authority. The male Slaver nodded passively and waved them forward with a crablike hand. Warrior yanked Avery along after her and followed the pulse of the radiation down the twisting tunnels until she finally found it.

"Get in," she growled in the low, rumbling voice of a Slaver, pushing Avery inside before closing the door and dispelling the illusion. Warrior slumped for a moment, exhausted. She was out of practice – she used to be able to create and maintain multiple illusions all at the same time. Then again, she hadn't used her mental abilities in half a century.

"Easy now," Avery said, steadying Warrior as she stumbled. "Don't you go passing out on me now."

"Don't touch me." Warrior snarled, her lip curling on instinct. "Pick up two of those containers and let's go." Avery released her, his eyes boring holes into hers. Warrior pretended not to notice and concentrated on her breathing, preparing herself to reboot the illusion.

"Humans!" Warrior whirled at the bellowed word, her sword spinning out of their sheathes in moments, cutting the Slaver down before he could take another step.

"Move!" Warrior said, her voice ringing with authority, but also quivering with excitement. She'd been still for too long in her time on Earth. She needed some _action_. "Get the fuel, come on!" She knew that ever Slaver in the compound must've heard and that they wouldn't hesitate to start the hunt. There was nothing a Slaver enjoyed more than hunting humans. Warrior had led them through the tunnels and outside before the indigenous caught up – and started to gain on them. And not just three or four. And entire hoard of them, screaming their excitement and charging Warrior and Avery like angry bulls with their heads down, horns extended to their full length.

"Keep running!" Warrior said, before skidding to a sudden stop. She whirled, sheathing one of her sword and plucking out three of her knives, hurling each into three of the mob chasing them. Her aim was true and the aliens fell like stones, the blades sticking into their brains. Warrior whooped with excitement, turning back to catch up with Avery when she stumbled as if struck from behind, her teeth snapping shut to keep her from crying out. Damn. She'd forgot that some of the Slavers had that nifty little ability. Warrior snarled, hating her weakness and surged forward.

"Turn!" she shouted at Avery, struggling to keep up with him. She couldn't keep going like this. Avery obeyed and Warrior pushed him into a small crack in the ground, praying that it would open up into a larger cavern.

"How did you know that this was here?" Avery demanded.

"I...didn't..." Warrior wheezed, sliding down the rock wall of the cave, clutching at her chest.

"What's wrong?" Avery asked, almost sounding concerned as he knelt down beside her, almost invisible in the shadows. The only light in the cavern was filtering in through the hole in the ceiling where they'd come in.

"They...stopped my...heart. Damn Slavers...are... telekinetic." Warrior gasped.

"You _heart stopped_? But you're still alive!"

"I...don't have...time to explain...my anatomy to...you." Warrior choked out. "You need to... run back to... the TARDIS. Get it the fuel….and go back to... Earth." She grabbed a fistful of Avery's shirt, drawing his face to hers. "Go. Run. And whatever you do...Do. Not. Come. Back."

"What are you going to do?"

"Get you some time." Warrior took a deep breath and sprang out of the hole, a scream tearing out of her lips that was half battle cry, half shout of glee.

"Come on, boys," Warrior said quietly to herself, "let's play."

* * *

Avery didn't hesitate as he yanked the door of the ship open and threw himself inside.

"Where is Warrior?" the automated voice of the ship asked, almost sounding worried. Avery jumped. He'd forgotten that it could talk. "Where is my Time Lord?"

"She's still there?"

"You left my Time Lord?" the ship demanded. Suddenly the lights in the cabin flashed a lighter purple. Lilac, maybe. "You _left _my Time Lord?"

"Why do you keep saying that?" Avery shouted back at it. "What the bloody hell is a Time Lord?"

"Warrior is a Time Lord," the ship retorted. "_My_ Time Lord. And you left her on the Slave World looking like a human."

"She told me to give you the fuel and then go back to get her."

"You are lying."

"Yeah?" Avery challenged.

"Indeed. Your heart-rate is elevated and facial expressions indicate dishonesty. And I know my Warrior. She would never tell you to go back."

"Fine." Avery snapped. "But I really don't give a damn what she says. One of the...aliens...stopped her heart." The lilac color blinked again, more rapidly this time. Apparently that happened when he made the spaceship angry.

"Open up the containers," the ship dictated. Avery nodded and did what he was told, releasing the radiating into the engines. Within seconds, the ship started to hum, the whirring sound echoing throughout the control room. Avery slammed against the wall as the ship launched itself into whatever it traveled through – the Vortex, she had called it. Avery felt worry twisting in his gut when he thought of her standing off against those monstrous creatures. There was no doubt that she was dangerous and could fight her way out – with her heart beating. Avery shook his head, trying to rid himself of the mental image of her gasping for air as she told him to run for his life while she fought for time. Time for him.

"Where are we going?" Avery asked.

"To find her." Avery opened his mouth again to ask another question, but the ship rattled as it landed with a _thump_.

"Where are we?"

"The Slave World. Two weeks after Warrior was left behind."

* * *

Warrior's eyes were closed, not in sleep, but in concentration. She was trying to piece together a map of the complex the Slaver's had stuck her in. And also strengthening her mind – mind-hopping, she used to call it. Her mental abilities had grown weaker in her time in the Void. She flitted from one mind to another, seeing through their eyes, determining her location. She was underground, deep underground, in the middle of the complex, but unguarded. The Slavers didn't think that she had any chance of escaping.

They had no idea.

Warrior had pulled the chains binding her to the wall free days ago and was already planning an escape route. There was just one teeny, tiny setback.

The knife in her chest.

The Slavers knew that she wasn't human – even they weren't stupid enough to think that a human could spontaneously be born with two – which was probably why she was still alive. They wanted to know what she was. And telling them that she was a Time Lord was a very, _very_ bad idea. Her people had done everything within their power to undermine the human-trading industry, until the War at least. But even creatures as stupid as they were had some sort of racial memory.

Warrior heard footsteps thundering down the tunnel, closer and closer to where she was being kept and her eyes snapped open, a sinister smile curving her lips. She clenched the chains in her fists, ready to use them as weapons when necessary.

Time to have some _real _fun.

* * *

_**Dun dun dunnnnn! So how are we liking Warrior? Please review or message me!**_

_**~Fae**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I do not own DW

**Author's Note: **Thank you to everyone who favorited this story/added it to their story lists! And thanks to _**memyshadow** _(His name is Avery, by the way, not Adam, and yes, he is pretentious, but you find out why he has such issues later, fear not, you will love him. I do 3 And also I have read Graceling and LOVE that you think my Warrior compares. That means a lot to me! I cannot disclaim when we will meet the Doctor, sorry. AND OH MY GOSH DARN FLIPPING GOD. I HATE MOFFAT FOR MAKING ME AFRAID OF THE DARK, STATUES AND PLAYING COPY-CAT. NIGHTMARES FOR WEEKS! WEEKS I TELL YOU!)

* * *

Warrior whipped the chains round and round in circles, smashing them into the first Slaver that entered the room, then the second, before either could shout an alarm. She smirked as she blew past them, the chains clinking quietly as them bumped against each-other, no longer swinging. She closed her eyes and ran, using the minds of the Slavers to find her way through the tunnels. But not out. She had to find her sword first.

"Oi!" Warrior's eyes snapped open and she almost ran into a stalagmite that had _not _been in the mental map she'd assimilated.

The TARDIS.

And Avery?

"What are you doing back here?" Warrior hissed.

"Couldn't leave you. Your ship wouldn't let me. It's bloody protective, it is."

"Well do me a favor since clearly you didn't listen last time. Get back in my 'bloody protective' ship and stay there! I've got to go get something."

"What?"

"My swords!"

"Screw the sword! You're..." Avery's face went pale when he saw the knife hilt sticking out of her chest.

"Don't touch the knife!" Warrior snarled. She didn't have time for this! Warrior turned away, eager to continue her search, when Avery's hand clamped around her wrist.

"I'm coming with you." Warrior wanted to argue – she really did – but she didn't have the _time_. Any second more Slavers were going to come down to administer more "tests" for her and she'd be discovered as missing. And then everything would just be shot straight to hell. Warrior shot him a look that clearly said _shut up or die_ and kept moving. Her swords were being held just down the hall...here! She kicked the rock door in and rushed inside, almost crowing with delight when she laid hands on the swords' hilts again.

She'd missed them.

"_It has escaped!_"

"Run!" Avery said, turning to run. Warrior sneered. He could run. She was going to fight.

And she did, cutting down two of the Slavers easily – until the knife in one of her hearts started to take its toll. Damn, Warrior cursed. She'd forgotten about that. She couldn't keep it up, especially now that the wound was seeping blood dangerously. And a mental assault was out of the question – she was too exhausted.

"What are you doing?" Avery shouted, somehow appearing by her side. It took Warrior a minute to realize that she had blacked out for a moment. "Come on!" Warrior swayed, dangerously close to falling over. She'd been stupid, overestimated her abilities and now she was paying for it.

"I...can't..." Warrior blinked as the world swirled around her in a rainbow of reds and oranges flowing together like water. Then everything tilted and she was moving. Some part of her recoiled when she realized that the human was carrying her, but Warrior barely had the strength to keep her eyes open let alone resist and stand on her own.

"There's something wrong with her," the boy announced, his voice sounding far away. The reds and blues had been replaced by a bright, pulsing violet and there was no more noise. She liked that, the quiet. Noise was bad.

"Warrior!" That voice was familiar – her ship...it had a name...but she couldn't remember what it was. Everything was fuzzy now. Fuzzy, and swirly and purple.

"Launch..." Warrior muttered, almost without realizing. A reflex taking hold. Something or other filled the air around her with a soothing whirring sound.

Then nothing.

* * *

Warrior jerked awake, spinning into a crouch with a low growl building in her throat. She didn't know where she was, but is sure as hell wasn't where she wanted to be.

"Peace," a booming, oddly soothing voice said, forcing Warrior's attention. The Face of Boe stared down at her, its enormous head taking up what seemed to be the majority of a large white room. "young Time Lord," it said, its ancient eyes boring into her

"Not so young anymore." Warrior corrected it. She'd met the Face before, once, when her father had taken her to an interplanetary mission. She hadn't liked it then, had though its gloomy attitude and ancient superiority was tiresome, but even now, with it looking down on her so intently, the Face made Warrior squirm.

"Young to me," the Face said, with what might've – just might've – been a smile. "Always young to me." But before Warrior could take a second look, the Face morphed back into a wizened mask of concern. "I am dying, Time Lord. I am in need of your assistence before I pass on." The Face nodded, almost as if it was answering some kind of internal question to himself. Then the Face of Boe rippled like an image seen through clear water and vanished entirely, taking the dream with it.

* * *

Warrior woke with a start, reaching for one of her knives.

"Whoa!" Avery said, backing away from her. "Calm down, it's just me."

"Adjust course." Warrior said to the ship, knowing that it could hear her though she wasn't in the control room. "Identify and track the Face of Boe." The TARDIS whirred and clicked as the course was altered. Warrior turned to Avery. "What happened?" she demanded, taking a threatening step forward. She couldn't remember anything and memory loss did _not_ sit well with her. The last thing she could recall was running through the Slaver tunnels before everything went gray, like static.

"You passed out. There..." Avery swallowed hard. "There was a knife in your chest. I thought that you were going to die."

"What does it matter to you?" Warrior snapped angrily. She was taking out her frustration on him, she knew that, but it still made her feel better. "The TARDIS could've taken you home while I recovered. Why did you stay?"

"I couldn't leave. You could've _died._"

"No." Warrior said, calming herself. "No, I couldn't have. For three reasons. One: I've got two hearts, moron. That's why I was still breathing when one was...incapacitated. Unfortunately, only having one is a bitch to maintain. Two: there are nanogenes on this ship that could heal me in less than a minute. And three: Please. I don't die. Death is not in the cards for me." If it was, I'd died along with my people, in the glory of battle, defending our home, instead of trapped in the Void like an animal, Warrior thought to herself bitterly. "Now how long have I been asleep?"

"Almost a day."

"Time wasted." Warrior growled. "You are going back to Earth. I've got things to do." Warrior turned away from him, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her cold.

"I'm not leaving you." Avery said, his black eyes shining with what she interpreted as anger. "Say what you want about being invincible, you _would have died_ on that planet if I hadn't gotten you out. Your welcome for that by the way. Now believe it or not, fearsome warrior, you need someone to watch your back and I'm the only one around who's going to deal with your particular brand of bullshit."

Warrior unsheathed her sword. "I could – "

"Yeah, yeah." Avery snapped. "You could kill me. You say that an awful lot, but I don't seem to be dead, now, do I? No. Now shut up and let's go find this Face of Boie thing you were talking about."

"We have arrived on New New Earth," the TARDIS announced before Warrior could retort. But, truly, she was reeling. No one had ever talked to her like that. Ever. Even her elders had slightly feared her for her abilities – but somehow, this half-human did not share their reservations.

"It's the Face of Boe." Warrior said. "Basically a giant head in a jar. And if you insist on coming there are rules, the first of which is that you need to do what I tell you. This isn't a game and not all of the world we visit are going to be as friendly as the Slave World. If you fall behind, you get left behind, got it?"

"You're the alien." Avery said. Warrior took his sarcasm as consent. "What is New New Earth?"

"It's essentially Earth, after the sun blows up the original. Humans get all nostalgic when things go _boom_, so they colonized a planet that reminded them of the old Earth." Warrior closed her eyes, using her mind to read the TARDIS's data. "And we're in New New York."

"New New York?" Avery scoffed. "Really? That's as creative as they could get?"

"It's really the fifteenth New York." Warrior said, recalling her old lessons with her father, from so long ago. She felt guilty about abandoning her mission so soon, but even she wasn't arrogant enough to ignore the Face of Boe when it said that it wanted her. The Face was old, older than the universe itself, some said, and infinitely knowledgeable, so whatever it had to say was probably very important. "New new-new new-new-new new new-new new new-new-new new- new York." Warrior was surprised at herself. Usually she didn't say such whimsical things. Avery didn't comment, but Warrior was worried – was her time in the Void taking its toll? Was she finally going crazy?

Warrior somehow pushed those thoughts aside and found herself giving Avery a history of New New York, praising its Senate, buildings and grand democracy that had led the planet in peace for years. The words on her lips died when she stepped outside, her eyes falling on the crumbling wreck of a city.

"What happened here?" Avery asked, his voice small. Warrior wished that she knew – New New York was supposed to be the crown jewel of the human empire, not the dilapidated ghost town she saw sprawled in front of her.

"Come on, we've got to get to the Senate." Warrior said. The enormous building was crumbling, but Warrior knew that it was where she had to go. A feeling. And she'd learned not to ignore her feelings. Warrior took off, weaving through the streets until she made it to the Senate building, with Avery trailing behind her.

"Hurry up!" Warrior shouted to him, shoving the doors of the building open. "I'm the one who's been asleep for a day, the least you can do is keep up with me."

"As you keep reminding me, I am half-human. And humans get tired." Avery snapped. Warrior ignored him and kept moving, flying up the stairs until she reached the top floor. With both her hearts pumping again it was easy to reach, despite the debris cluttering up the stairwell. She knew Avery was lagging behind again but couldn't bring herself to care. There was a sense of urgency growing inside of her that she couldn't explain, but it made her hearts beat faster with fear and anticipation.

"Intruder!" Warrior skidded to a stop, both of her swords flashing at the neck of a...cat? In a habit? Warrior had never seen cat nuns before.

"Fear not," Warrior's head snapping towards the voice of the Face of Boe, settled in the corner. He looked like crap. "You are not who I was expecting." The Face turned towards her, looking quizzical.

"You were inside my head." Warrior said, moving past the cat. "In my dream. How could it have not been me?"

"I was pulled into your dream..." the Face mused. "You have an extraordinary mind, young Time Lord."

"So I've been told. You said you needed me. But you're dying, what can I do?"

"I am dying," the Face said. "And there is nothing I can do. Nor you, but my life force is sustaining people trapped beneath the surface of the city. They need me to stay alive."

"And I can keep you alive just a little bit longer."

"Sir, this is absurd!" the cat nun protested, her voice a feline hiss. "This child can do nothing."

"Do not underestimate her," the Face of Boe said sharply. Or, sharply for him. "This child is more than eight-hundred years old and has destroyed worlds with little more than a thought."

"You've done _what_?" Avery said, finally having caught up.

"You didn't think that I earned my name by being good with pointy objects, did you?" Warrior said without looking at him, her voice heavy with memories. "Boe, I've got an idea." Warrior said, looking at the wires and things poking out of the walls. And it was going to hurt. "You, cat thing," Warrior said, pointing at the nun, who looked affronted. Then again, cats almost always looked affronted for some reason or another. "I need you to hook up this cable to the containment center unit. Whatever it is that's feeding him, this needs to go there, you got that?"

"I – "

"The answer I'm looking for is yes. Now do it." The nun hissed, but did as she was told. "Avery, stay clear. This is going to get dangerous."

"What's that you've got there?" Avery asked, seeing Warrior taking something that looked like a blinking, shimmering knife out of her pocket.

"Piece of the TARDIS. When I can't directly link something up to it, this key allows me to hack into almost anything I want. Within reason of course." With that, Warrior jammed the key into the exposed wires. Her eyes rolled back into her head as the TARDIS – and she – absorbed the mainframe of the building. _Show me everything. _Warrior told the system, the system that was now under the dual control of her and her TARDIS. The older Time Lords had told her that it was impossible, dangerous, deadly, even, to link with her ship to the extend that Warrior had, but she had the capability. And she could do what she liked. Neither could survive without the other, but both were stronger for the link. Warrior had gained power of technology, like the Lords of Yahn, who ruled over their metal world, controlling the machinery with their minds; while the TARDIS was more animated, more Time Lord than any of its kind. The system resisted for a moment, before allowing Warrior in. As soon as it was done, Warrior twisted her wrist hard, gaining her access to the main power core. She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself.

"The cable is set!" the cat nun said.

"Alright. Everyone back away!" Warrior ordered. "Don't touch me or him and stay away from the wires. Avery, that means you!" Oh, she thought, I really hope I don't die. Then Warrior focused her mind, sending all of the power surging through the building and into the one cable.

The one cable she happened to be touching. Warrior screaming as the electricity coursed through her. Every nerve was on fire and she couldn't breathe, then she was getting too much air, then none at all.

And then the pain lessened somewhat.

"What the hell are you doing?" Warrior yelled when her vision had cleared enough to see that Avery had grabbed hold of the cable as well.

"I...heal...you...idiot!" Warrior pushed him away and released her hold on the power source, collapsing onto the ground, breathing heavily. Avery had fallen too, lying on his back next to her. "Is this what you do?" he asked shakily. "Go around and put yourself into dangerous situations for fun?"

"This isn't a dangerous situation." Warrior said, rising slowly to her feet. "That was just stupid." Avery protested loudly as she smacked him on the arm. Hard. "What was the first rule? You do as I say. Do you have any idea what you just did?"

"I saved your life. Again!"

"No you didn't! I told you, I _can't die_! And just I fixed the power up to a DNA splicer down in the basement." Which had been a lucky find, actually. "Do you know what that means? It means that that current just transferred some of my DNA into the Face. And now some of yours as well." Warrior turned from him, shaking with anger and looked back towards the Face. "I'm sorry. I don't know what his genes will do to you. But mine, at least, might keep you alive for a while longer."

"The boy is not entirely human, either. His genes will not harm me."

"But what about those people down there? I can't access the lower levels from here, even with my kind of access. I'd need...I'd need something sonic!"

"Do not fear, young Time Lord. They have been trapped there for years, but they will soon be free. But they would've died today if not for your actions, so for that, I thank you." Warrior thought of all of those people down there, trapped like animals. And she couldn't do a damn thing.

Just like she couldn't do anything as her people had been slaughtered in the Time War while she wasted time in the Void.

"Damn!" Warrior shouted, slamming her fist into the wall and leaving a crater there, exposing more wires.

_Peace._

_Oh for the love of God, get out of my head, Boe. _Warrior knew that she was being disrespectful but she was just so sick of being useless. _I don't think you'll like it very much._

_ Yes, there is much darkness in your thoughts. A mind-sickness. _Warrior felt ill at his words. Her eyes flashed to Avery, who'd gone still as well, shockingly so. _Ah I see. You are eight centuries old, but you have not lived for all of them. You lack experience._

Warrior snarled. _I am not lacking in experience. Mercy and compassion, yes, but not experience._

_ Believe what you will. But there is a darkness in you, Time Lord, a _growing_ darkness. You may not feel it now, but you will soon. However, there is hope. Take heart in the knowledge that there is someone who can help you, if you'll let him._

_ Oh, _the Face continued after a moment, _and do stop abusing your companion. He wants to understand. _With that, the Face of Boe withdrew from her mind and Warrior heard only her own thoughts in her head.

"Avery." Warrior hissed, grabbing his hand and yanking him along with her. "We're leaving."

* * *

_**Oh, Face of Boe, how you love being enigmatic. 3**_

_**Hoped you all enjoyed and please review!**_

_**~Fae**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I do not own DW!

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much to everyone who favorites/added my story to their watch list, etc. And a super-special thank you to **_Not Defined By Boundries_** (I think you're going to enjoy this chapter!) and **_GoForTehGig_** (Yes, I wrote the Face's voice in monotone, now that you mention it. Enjoy!)

* * *

"You're staring at me." Warrior said, her eyes closed as she lounged on one of the chairs in the control room. "Stop staring at me." They were back in the TARDIS, but Warrior wouldn't tell him where she was taking them. The Face had told her to explain. So she was going to show him something that would explain for her.

"How can you do that? Know that I'm looking at you?" Avery asked. Warrior was growing tired of his endless questions and having to answer them. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

_Same way I can do this._ Avery jerked upright as her voice sounded off in his head. _Same way I could create the illusions. Like that one. _Suddenly a ten-foot Slaver appeared in the center of the TARDIS, roaring, before Warrior waved her hand at it and it vanished.

"Shit!" he swore. "Don't do that. The Face...it could make me see things too. It...was in my head..." Avery looked at her shrewdly. "So you're psychic?"

"No. Psychic is a human term used to describe people who can read other people's minds. I can only project my own mind into another person's. If I know your thoughts, it's because I have complete access to your mind. Memories, personality, will, everything."

"You shouldn't be able to do that. The Face said that you shouldn't be able to do that."

"I can do a lot of things that I'm not supposed to be able to do. And the Face is a he, by the way." Warrior said seriously, looking at him with cold emerald eyes.

"Yeah, I've seen the things you can do."

"No. No you haven't. You heard the Face. I've destroyed entire civilizations. My people..." Warrior trailed off. Too soon. It was too soon. "Guess how old I am," she said abruptly changing the subject.

"What?"

"Guess."

"I dunno...seventeen? Eighteen?"

Warrior looked away. "Eight-hundred-and-ten. I'm a Time Lord. My father was over a thousand years old when he died. We don't die like the humans, we regenerate. You heal, but if you die, you're dead. I can come back. No matter how much I wish I hadn't." The last part was whispered, so soft that Warrior wasn't sure whether or not he could hear it. "This ship doesn't only travel through space, but time. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. I can see everything. Everything that is, was, and can be. But at the same time, I don't know anything at all. I've missed five-hundred years of history."

"So you're only three hundred?"

Warrior's eyes slid to him suspiciously. "You're taking this rather well."

"The Face. It – he – told me not to be...well, he said that you'd surprise me."

"Not all surprises are good surprises." Warrior muttered darkly. "You can't even imagine the things I've see, the things I've _done_. I have enemies everywhere – aliens who's racial hate for me goes back to before humans had colonized all of the Earth. People have died while watched because I couldn't interfere. I _have _interfered and whole planets were destroyed."

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

Because the Face told me to. "Because if you insist on coming with me, you need to know who's piloting this ship. And, if you haven't noticed, I don't particularly want you with me, so I'm hoping that something I say will scare you off and you'll go scampering back to Earth _where you belong._"

"Well I appreciate the effort, but I'm not going anywhere." Avery said. Warrior ground her teeth in frustration. How was she going to get anything done with him in the way?

"We've arrived." Warrior felt a wave of relief that she wouldn't have to speak further, but it was quickly replaced by a cold, mind-numbing dread. Warrior's hand flew to her temple as images and emotion bombarded themselves against her skull.

Death, death everywhere.

Fires, burning, lasers firing blindly into the smoke.

Screams of pain and cries of fear and anguish.

"What did you _do_?" Warrior screamed at the TARDIS.

"You needed to see. You both did."

"But we _agreed_!" Warrior shrieked. "You _promised_!"

"What?" Avery said, jumping up. "What is it? Where are we?" In response, the doors of the TARDIS swung open, revealing a burning world glowing below them in a fiery inferno. Warrior stood at the door, silent for a moment, and in that second, Avery was afraid that she was going to jump, but then she pulled back, her head cradled in her hands.

"Get me out of here!" Warrior snarled, her voice resonating with anger and pain before she ran full-tilt out of the control room.

"What...what planet is that?"

"Ours," the TARDIS replied. "We are the last of our kind. That is our planet from over five-hundred years ago, while it was still burning. Warrior believes that she can find survivors of the War that destroyed our world."

"Which is why she doesn't want me to come."

"Time Lords are solitary by nature. Warrior more so than most. More gifted, more burdened. Which means she needs more help than anyone else. Help that you may be able to provide."

"How? What can I do?" Avery said,

"That is not for me to tell you. But you need to go to find her. Warrior may not know it yet, but she needs you."

* * *

Warrior ran as fast as she could, banging against the walls of the ship as she sprinted through the winding halls. Her vision was blurred and she could barely see where she was going. Something dropped onto her hand and Warrior was shocked and repulsed to see that it was a tear.

She was crying. Warrior hadn't cried for the good part of a century. But she couldn't get the image of Gallifrey burning out of her head. It was like the hellish visual was burned into the back of her eyelids, forcing her to look whenever she blinked.

"Oh, for God's sake, stop being so stupid!" Warrior told herself sharply when she finally stopped running, leaning on the wall and breathing heavily.

"It's not stupid to grieve for your family." Warrior slammed her palm into her forehead, relishing the pain for a moment. Why couldn't he just leave her alone to wallow in her own self-pity?

"I never used to be this emotional. I was stone, a soldier."

"Well, I think I like this better."

"Avery," Warrior said tiredly. "Go home. I have things to do that will probably get you killed."

"Like trying to find your people." Warrior nodded. Like that.

"I'm not leaving you. You shouldn't be alone. Now don't get me wrong, you're scary, dangerous, arrogant, bossy as hell, and batshit crazy doesn't even begin to describe what I think goes on in that ancient head of yours, but you _did _save my life, as much as you're regretting it now." Avery's hand clasped around hers and he forced Warrior to look directly into his eyes. "Oi, you hearing me? You're not alone."

Warrior forced herself to swallow and she nodded. Not alone was sounding pretty good right about now.

* * *

And after that, it seemed like a kind of truce had formed between the two of them. Warrior showed Avery her star maps, explaining about each of the planets where she wanted to go searching. She told him about her world, about Gallifrey and all of its magnificence, the Time Lords that patrolled the Vortex, overseeing everything but never intervening. Warrior had also begun to teach him how to defend himself; only small daggers, but still. Avery could heal, but if someone hacked off one of his limbs, he was pretty much screwed. In any case, it was better than barreling into hostile planets without any sort of protection.

And as for Avery's part of the bargain...well, Avery listened. Oh, he asked questions, questions upon questions, more than Warrior had the patience to put up with, but mostly, he listened. And it was strange, the way he acclimated himself into the little world that was the TARDIS. The ship had dozens of rooms that were set up as little bedrooms, complete with dressers and beds, but Avery had found an old dusty little attic, right above the control room. Inside there was a window that allowed him to look into the inner mechanics of the TARDIS. Warrior knew about this – she also knew about the little passageway through the attic-like room into the observatory, though Avery thought that she didn't. But not only was Avery learning about the universe, Warrior was learning about him. Besides his obvious affinity for black, Avery liked being up high. Hence the room he'd picked as his. He also wrote daily in a little book. Something else he tried to hide form her but Warrior noticed everything that went on on her ship. Anything she missed was reported by the TARDIS itself.

But that is not to say that they didn't fight. On the contrary, they fought constantly, with the ship acting as a referee, though it preferred egging on each of them in turn rather than settling arguments.

"We're not going back to Earth!" Warrior said, smacking her hand down on the control console and nearly spilling the coffee she'd been drinking. Avery had introduced her to coffee.

She loved coffee.

"Last time I was there, you almost died and the Thneeds might still be out to get me _and_ you."

"Well we don't have to go back to that time period." Avery argued. "You even said yourself that there were abnormally high energy readings coming from Earth. What if it's one of your people? How could you forgive yourself if you passed up this chance to find them?"

"Stubborn human."

"Insolent Time Lord." Avery shot back at her, not backing down. "Listen, just hear me out: if any Time Lords _did _survive – and I'm not saying that none did – they might've given up on you. Because, technically, to them, you've been dead, for what? Five-hundred-plus years? That's a long time to be searching for someone who can't be found."

"We don't give up."

"I know _you_ don't, but you're odd." Warrior bared her teeth at him. It was a habit of hers that she couldn't seem to break. Nevertheless it made her feel better. "Besides, you said that humans look like Time Lords...what if they hid on Earth to blend in?"

Dammit. He had a point. Warrior _hated it _when he had a point.

"He is making a valid suggestion."

"Shut up, you!" Warrior snapped. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to take out your communication software."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." Avery muttered under his breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Warrior demanded, turning on him and shaking her coffee mug threateningly in his direction.

"You and your ship. You've always been together, haven't you? You need it and it needs you."

"He." Warrior corrected. "The TARDIS is a he. I don't know why, but somehow most TARDIS' are the opposite gender of the Time Lord assigned to them. Well, in my case it was just luck. I stole my ship."

"You did what?"

"I was nine. I wanted to see the universe, my father wouldn't let me. So I stole a TARDIS, modified the software so that he couldn't take it back from me and off we went."

"Nine in Time Lord years...?"

"She was barely an infant. But already so strong. Our people knew that she would be destined for great things," the TARDIS said proudly. Avery, after several weeks of jumping whenever he heard the disembodied voice, was finally coming to grips with the fact that it had a mind of its own, weird as it seemed. "But, regardless, your human is right. Earth would be a good place for a Time Lord to hide." Warrior didn't like Avery being referred to as "her human," but she also knew that this was one fight that she couldn't win.

"Fine," she agreed, scowling. "Fine, we'll go to Earth. Reroute course." Warrior felt her own lips turn up at the corners when she saw Avery's smile. She had taken him to so many amazing, dangerous, fantastic places, well, Warrior had figured – and hoped – that he'd have forgotten about Earth. But you never forgot your home-world, not really. Avery had been helping her find pieces of hers, now she owed him a visit to his, even if she thought that it would prove pointless.

"Where are we headed?" Avery asked, his voice tinged with excitement.

"Earth year two-thousand-and-seven." Warrior answered. "That's where the power flux is coming from."

"And is that supposed to be happening?" Warrior just looked at him quizzically without replying. "You know, you said that you could see the future. Is this energy from Earth supposed to be happening?"

Warrior laughed, finally understanding. "No, er, well, I don't know. It doesn't work like that. I can see options for the future, but I can't be focused on more than one thing at a time. Power surges are normal for most planets, but I won't know if this one is natural until..." And then Avery was gone. The TARDIS was gone.

Both.

Gone.

And Warrior was falling. It took her less than a second to realized that she was free-falling through the Vortex and to hug her arms close to her body, trying to make herself more compact. Brace yourselves, she thought sardonically. One, two...

"Ow." Warrior groaned, flat on her back, her limbs splayed haphazardly across the sidewalk concrete. Time-travel without a capsule was a bitch. But luck seemed to be on her side and there was no one to notice a teenage-looking girl drop out of the sky. Warrior got slowly to her feet and ran a mental diagnosis. Nothing seemed to be broken, though she was painfully bruised just about everywhere.

"Where am I?" she mused aloud.

"Hey, you!" Warrior turned to see a girl with dark skin coming over to her, concern shining in her chocolate eyes. "You okay? You look like you got banged up proper."

"Fine." Warrior snapped. She turned round, trying to find some sort of indicator to tell her where she was.

"Oi!" the girl protested when Warrior snatched the paper she was holding out of her hands. London, 1969. Thirty-eight years _before _she'd sent Avery and the TARDIS. Fantastic. Warrior shoved the paper back into the indignant girl's hands and walked the other direction. She needed to get back to them – or, _they_ needed to get back to _her._ Warrior made her way through the busy streets, trying to find a quiet spot. There were just so many people in London! She could hardly think of a more crowded city – pardoning Shanghai or New York City or the like. Truthfully, she didn't know the difference, nor did Warrior really care to. Earth cities, just like its inhabitants, all kind of merged into a bumbling blob to her. But finally, Warrior found a quiet-ish place that was suitable: an old abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. She climbed to the roof, ignoring the rain that had begun to pour down on the city. A little water had never stopped her before.

_ Avery!_ Warrior mental voice boomed as she stood with her head lifted to the sky. Maybe, hopefully, she could project her thoughts with enough power to send them through time and space. Maybe. _I'm okay. Tell the TARDIS to find me. _Warrior took a deep breath then turned, repeating her message three more times, one for each cardinal direction. If she was lucky, that should do it.

But if she wasn't, she had to have a plan. Warrior shook off her sudden exhaustion, taking careful stock of her assets. She was armed – that was no surprise – and she had the hack, the piece of the TARDIS. And, of course, there was always just plain old Time Lord ingenuity. Warrior climbed back down to the street, mentally surveying the city for a place that would suit her needs. She wasn't going to take a chance; she'd make her own luck.

* * *

"Hello, everyone." Warrior said pleasantly, throwing the doors of a radio factory wide open. "You all might want to leave right about now." The workers stopped and stared for a moment, before laughing her off and going back to their work. Warrior smiled, moving up to an observation platform, just as several enormous explosions wracked the buildings. "You have three seconds. One...two..." The workers shouted, trampling over one another to get out of the building. It was smart of them to run. The explosions hadn't been real, just illusions, but Warrior _did _have a few real bombs planted at strategic points around the building in case things went wrong. But Warrior didn't have the energy to keep up any more illusions, especially after depleting almost all of her power sending her intergalactic, multidimensional message.

"That's what I thought," Warrior said to herself, grinning as she made her way to the control-deck and stabbed her hack into the computer. The feeble Earth system didn't even hesitate before it relinquished control to her. Perfect.

Warrior knew that she couldn't rely on Avery to find her. So she'd find her own way into 2007. And the technology in the radios, coupled with the little TARDIS shard, should've been enough to cobble together her own Void manipulator. Not a good one; actually a really bad one, but still, is should work. Maybe.

Warrior shook off her uncertainty. She was a Time Lord. She was brilliant. It would work. Warrior's eyes focused straight ahead, following diagrams and schematics that only she could see. She was so engrossed in her work that she almost didn't hear the soft footfalls coming from the elevator shaft behind her. It was clever, really, when the police had closed off the building to protect the public from the "bomber." Stupid humans. A "bomb threat" was only an actual _threat_ when there were actual bombs involved.

"Martha, careful!" a British-accented voice said urgently.

"I told you, that's who I saw!" a female voice said, right behind Warrior. "The same voice I heard in my head!" Warrior didn't turn away from the screens and monitors that she saw in her mind, but her shoulders stiffened with recognition. That voice – it was the girl she'd stolen the newspaper from earlier in the day.

"I'm going to give you the same warning that I gave them." Warrior said without turning. "You have three seconds to get out of here before things start to go bad." The transference of the radio-waves into a working time-travel device was almost complete, she couldn't afford to lose her focus now.

"Hey, hey, we don't want any trouble," the man said. Warrior turned, the power control panels still flashing in front of her eyes. Still, Warrior made an effort to observe the two in front of her: the black girl, with defined cheekbones and dark eyes, was staring at her accusingly, but it was the man behind her that drew Warrior's attention. He was odd-looking, out of place, especially for this time period, with a pinstripe jacket and long tan overcoat and crazy hair that stood straight up into the air. But it wasn't just his attire, it was his eyes that really threw her. Warrior recognized something in them; a kind of kinship erupted in her. And something else.

Fear. Warrior's heart pounded, her jade eyes widening until they seemed too big for her face. She was scared. So terrified that the connection that she'd made to the building evaporated in an instant, the very second she lost her concentration. She'd have to start over from scratch, but she didn't care. Warrior snatched a knife out of her sheathes – they were bigger on the inside – and sent it spinning towards the girl, Martha.

"Get down!" the man shouted, taking his eyes off of Warrior for a moment to shove his companion out of the way. Warrior took her opportunity and ran. She didn't retreat tactfully, she didn't think about trying to salvage the situation. For the first time, Warrior ran for her life.

* * *

**_So what did y'all think? Please shoot me a message or review, I'm always open to feedback and will often put my readers' suggestions into the story itself! Review, people, and I promise you'll get a shout-out!_**

**_~Fae_**


	7. Chapter 7

Avery blinked and Warrior was gone. No crack of thunder, no puff of smoke, nothing dramatic. One second she was there and then next she wasn't. Simple as that.

"Bloody..." Avery started, his words cut off by the entire ship shaking as it landed. "We need to go back, we need to find her."

"Reading energy signatures," the TARDIS said aloud.

Avery slammed his fist on the dashboard. "We need to go back!"

"It's not that easy."

"The hell it is! Just zip back on the path we were on and pick her up!"

"Time doesn't work that..." The cabin flashed mauve. "We have to stay here."

"What?" Avery shouted. The TARDIS didn't answer for a moment, but he could hear the gears whirring and clicking. It was calculating something.

"Sally Sparrow," the ship said suddenly. "You have to find Sally Sparrow. Do not argue. If Warrior was here, she would want you to do this." Avery opened his mouth to object, but then something clicked.

"You think that there's one of her people here? In this city? This time period? Another Time Lord?"

"The energy signature is that of a TARDIS. I cannot go anywhere without Warrior, nor she without me. It is the same for all Time Lords and all TARDIS's. If there is a TARDIS here..."

"There has to be a Time Lord!" Avery didn't entirely understand what a girl named Sally Sparrow had to do with it, but at the same time, he couldn't pilot the TARDIS. If she could help him find a Time Lord, well, he was going to find her.

* * *

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give your that information," the police officer said for the fifth time. "And if you ask again, I'll be forced to call security." Avery growled, but moved away without another comment. There was no use going door-to-door – London was huge and no one was going to be happy about a random kid knocking on their door in middle of their dinner – but going to the police wasn't getting him anywhere either.

"Hey" Avery turned to see a man coming up to him. "Girl named Sally Sparrow cam by here yesterday, right when one of our DIs went missing. She – hold on, that's her, out there." Avery looked out the window, following the man's line of sight to a pretty blonde girl on her phone walking quickly past the police station.

"Thanks," Avery said, dashing out the door. "Hey, Sally!" The girl turned.

"Yes?" she said, fidgeting, clearly wanting to keep moving.

"Listen, this is going to sound completely mad, but just hear me out. Weird things have been happening to you, yes? Things you can't explain, that shouldn't be able to happen, bu are. Things that have to do with time." Avery was grasping at straws, trying not to sound completely insane, and by the way the girl's brown eyes widened, he didn't think that he was doing a very good job.

"You know the Doctor?" the girl asked in a whisper. Avery nodded. The Doctor, the Warrior...was the titles-as-names a Time Lord thing? Either way, he knew that if he said yes, she'd be more inclined to help. "Come on, I've got to show you something."

* * *

"Have you got it?" Sally asked a man at the door. She'd led Avery to a decrepit old house on the outskirts of the city and now a man with shaggy, sandy-blonde hair was at the door.

"Course."

"Good. Larry, this is...sorry, I don't think I ever caught your name."

"Who are you talking to?"

"That would be me." Avery said, stepping out of the corner. He'd assumed that they'd be able to see him, but maybe Warrior had been right when she'd said that he blended in perfectly with the shadows. "Name's Avery, by the way. Come on, now, Sally said that you had some DVDs?"

"Right." Sally ushered the two of them to another room filled with graffiti under the peeling wallpaper.

_Beware the Weeping Angels...Duck..._ Avery could see where Sally had ripped off pieces of the wall coverings to reveal more words. But she hadn't done it all. There was a stray "A" peeking out from the corner. Avery carefully pulled it away, revealing his own name written in messy, scrawling handwriting, different from the one previously uncovered. Almost as if it was...new. But it couldn't be new in a house this old...could it?

_Avery, _the message said. _Don't blink. _

"What?" Avery murmured aloud, peeling back more wallpaper.

_Don't argue with me. Don't blink. I mean it._

_ See you soon,_

_ Warrior._

"You found more writing!" Sally said, coming up beside him. "But who's this Warrior? Is she like the Doctor?"

"Yeah, I think she is."

"Okay, it's ready!" Larry called. "This one's got the best sound, but the other one has slightly better picture."

"Doesn't matter." Sally said. Avery just glared, impatient to see what was on the videos.

"There he is." Larry said when a man in a pinstripe suit came onto the screen, putting on a pain of spectacles.

"The Doctor." Sally said.

"Who's the Doctor?"

"He's the Doctor."

"Yeah, that's me," the man in the video said. Avery cocked his head in surprise, peering closer at it.

"That was scary." Sally said, kneeling.

"No, it sounds like he's replying, but he always says that." Larry answered quickly, eager to show that he knew what he was talking about.

"Yes I do." the Doctor said, answering again.

"And that."

"Yup."

"And this."

"He can hear us." Sally gasped. "Oh my God, you can really hear us!"

"Oh course he can't hear us!" Larry said. "Look, I've got a transcript." Larry started to reread the whole conversation.

"Are you really going to read that whole thing?" the Doctor, Avery and Larry, reading the script, all said together.

"Wait a second," the Doctor said. "That wasn't there before. Oi!" he said sharply, pointing into the camera. "Who's there that wasn't before?"

"Avery, I think he means you."

"Yes, Avery!" the Doctor said, excitedly looking away from the camera. "Your Avery? The one you were talking about. You created a paradox, you clever girl!"

"Who is he talking to?" Sally asked Avery.  
"I think he's talking to Warrior. She's like him...only she's my version."

"But who are you?" Sally said, returning her interest back to the Doctor.

"I'm a time-traveler. Or I was. I'm stuck. In 1969."

"We're stuck." A new girl appeared on the screen, this one with ebony skin and dark hair pulled back by a headband. "All of time and space he promised me and now I've got a job in a shop, supporting him!"

"Martha!" the Doctor objected like a child being embarrassed by their parents.

"Sorry," the dark-haired girl said, leaving the video-feed.

"I've seen this bit before," Sally said.

"Quite possibly."

"1969. That's where your talking to me from?"

"Yep."

"But that's impossible! You're replying to me! You can't know exactly what I'm going to say forty years before I say it!"

"Thirty-eight," the Doctor corrected and Avery felt a stab of recognition. Warrior was always correcting him too. Maybe it was a Time-Lord thing. Sally and the Doctor went back and forth for a while, but Avery started to lose interest. What had Warrior meant _Don't blink_? Besides, he already knew about paradoxes and time-travel and the like. That was old news to him.

"Angels? You mean those statue things?"

"Creatures from another world." Avery's head snapped up. Now they were getting somewhere.

"But they're statues."

"Only when you see them. The Lonely Assassins they used to be called. That's what they called you too, did you know?" he said, again addressing someone out of the camera's view. Avery's heart leaped. Warrior! It could only be her. "But anyway, no one really knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe itself, or very nearly. And they've survived this long because they have the most perfect defense system every evolved: they're quantum-locked. They don't exist when they're being observed. The moment they are seen by any living creature they freeze into rock – it's not a choice, it's a fact of their biology. The second they're in the sight of any living thing they turn into stone. And you can't kill a stone."

"You could smash it." Avery suggested.

"Course," the Doctor plowed on, ignoring him, "a stone can't kill you either. But then you turn your head away. You blink. And oh yes it can."

"Don't take your eyes off that." Sally said, her lips barely moving. Larry obeyed, but Avery was glued to the DVD player's screen. He had to know more.

"That's why they cover their eyes," the Doctor continued. "They're not weeping, they can't risk looking at each-other. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. Loneliest creatures in the universe." Avery would beg to differ. He'd seen Warrior. She was surrounded by people, but she was so alone...

"The blue box," the Doctor went on. Avery forced himself back to attention. "It's my time machine. There is a world of time energy in there that they can feast on forever, but the damage they could do could switch off the sun. You have got to send it back to me."

"How?" Sally demanded. "How!"

"And that's it, I'm afraid." the Doctor said. "There's no more from you on the transcript, that's the last I've got. I don't know what stopped you talking, but I can guess. They're coming. The angels and coming for you, but listen, because this could save your life: don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away and _don't blink_. Good luck."

"Avery." Avery jumped at the voice calling his name.

"You can't do that!" the Doctor objected. "Isn't one paradox today enough for you?"

"Shut up, I can do what I want," a girl with angry emerald eyes and long copper-brown hair snapped, moving into the picture. "Avery listen to me. I know that you can heal, but this is something you can't save yourself from. Do you understand me? You get the TARDIS back to the Doctor and get the hell out. I'll come back for you." She looked at the camera and Avery could swear that she was looking right at him. "You hear me? Because I swear to God, if you get yourself stuck in some godforsaken time-zone while trying to play hero...I'll...I'll," Warrior on the film looked lost for a moment, casting about for a good enough threat, "I'll break the universe. Oh, shut up, Doctor, I've done it before, stop judging me." Warrior moved closer to the camera. "Avery. Don't blink. I'm coming back for you."

"Who is _that_?" Larry asked.

"She's a time traveler, like him, only...well, less wordy."

"She's beautiful." Sally said. "Larry...you're not looking at the statue."

"Neither are you." Avery's eyes snapped up, jerking backwards when he saw that the angel was only a few feet from them.

"Bloody hell!" he snarled, pulling both Sally and Larry back.

"Don't blink." Sally said in a hushed whisper. "You heard what they said, don't even blink."

"No kidding." Avery snarled. "Sally, you go check the front door, I'll try the back, yeah? Larry stay here. Don't blink." Avery didn't listen to hear if they agreed or not, but sped out of the room, dashing to the back door, only to find it locked. "We're locked in!" he shouted to the others.

"But – but it's just the one, right? Just this one?"

"There's three more!" Sally replied, yelling from the front door. "This is locked too."

"What? Three and what do they want?"

"I took something?"

"Well what the hell is it?" Avery yelled.

"A key! I took the key from them and led them to the blue box and now they've got that!"

"Give them the key!" Larry cried. Avery growled. Useless. He tried the windows, but they were barred as well. Damn! "Just give them what they want!"

"Larry! Avery! They've locked the doors but there's a stair! There might be a delivery hatch or something!"

"Come on then!" Avery shouted, tugging Larry along backwards, following Sally down the stairwell. Avery stopped dead at the bottom. There, in the basement, was the blue box. The Doctor's TARDIS.

Surrounded by three of the Weeping Angels.

"Alright boys," Sally murmured to herself. "I know how this works."

"Larry, get in front of me." Avery said, shoving the useless man in front of him. The idiot was shaking.

"Oh, look, Larry, there's your friend." Avery said, feigning nonchalance. "I think he missed you."

"Why's he pointing at the...light..." Avery felt his heart pound as the lights started to flicker.

"Oh my God, it's turning out the light."

"Quickly!" Larry shouted.

"I can't find the lock!" Sally cried.

"Keep working on it, I'll keep my eye on them!" Avery said, but how was he going to watch them when the lights...went...out?

"It's not working!" Sally shrieked as Larry shouted at her.

"Hurry up!" Avery said, fear working its way into his voice as the Angels got nearer and nearer. "Go!" Sally opened the door and they all pushed through.

Sally and Larry both gaped at the large interior of the TARDIS. Avery was slightly shocked as well. It looked nothing like Warrior's, all odd knobs and dials that he didn't recognize. And it didn't talk. A silent TARDIS wasn't something that he was used to.

"Yes, yes, it's bigger on the inside." Avery said. "Now stop your gawking, both of you."

"This is security protocol one." A hologram of the Doctor appeared, floating above them. "Time capsule has detected the presence of an authorized control disk. Authorized one journey. Please insert the disk and prepare for departure." Then the figure disappeared.

Disk? Avery spun, looking for a disk, until Larry pulled out the DVD from his pocket. Clever Time Lords. Always thinking, they were.

"There's a slot!" Sally said, calling them over. "It looks like a DVD player!"

"Then put it in!" Avery said, just as the TRADIS began to rock violently back and forth. "They're trying to get in! Hurry up!" As soon as the disk was in the slot, the engines began to whirr, the only familiar thing about this ship besides the fact that it was bigger on the inside than on the out.

"What's happening?" Sally cried. "Oh my God, it's leaving us behind!" And it was true: as Avery watched, the walls of the TARDIS became more and more transparent, until he could see the Weeping Angels glowering at him through them.

"Shit!" Avery swore, his mind humming, trying to think of a way out. "TARDIS override:" He paused, trying desperately to remember the commands that Warrior had taught him in case of an emergency. And this counted. "TARDIS override: alpha-delta-eight passenger emergency!"

"One passenger authorized," the hologram said, popping up again before vanishing just as quickly.

"No!" Avery yelled. "Three! Three passengers!" But it was too late, he was already vanishing with the rest of the TARDIS. Sally screamed and then they were gone.

* * *

**_Thanks to all who reviewed! Please keep them coming, I want to know if this is worth continuing or not, because if it's bad, I've got plenty of other even little ideas jackrabbiting around in my head_**

**_~Fae_**


	8. Chapter 8

"Come back!" the man shouted after her. Warrior snarled in his general direction but didn't look back and didn't make any move to fight. "I just want to talk to you!"

Yeah right. Warrior skidded around a corner, her mind scanning the streets for the man or his companion. The human she could take care of without a problem, but...

"Hey, now!" What? How had he gotten there. Warrior had been sure that the human girl had been coming from the left! "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, we just want to talk. Yeah? Talk." Warrior sprang away from him and pulled out her swords in one smooth motion.

"No." Warrior growled, fear making her voice shake. "No talking. And don't you come near me or I'll kill you. I'll do it."

"Not on my watch!" the girl, Martha, yelled, right before Warrior was blindsided. Not enough to send her flying, not even enough to make her fall over, but enough to make her stumble, just for a second. A second that the man used to surge forward and press his hand to her temple.

And then Warrior's mind seemed much, much too small. Too small, because there were two people in it.

_GET OUT! _Warrior roared, pushing back with all her might. In an instant her mind was weaponized and ready to be used offensively, all sharp points and cruel barbs. She battered the man's mind, brutalized it, until he was forced to retreat or suffer serious damage.

Both Warrior and the man staggered back by the force of Warrior's mental assault.

"That's impossible," he murmured.

"Doctor!" Martha cried, rushing to help him stand. Warrior caught her as she ran, holding a sword to the human's neck.

"You make one move, and she dies." Warrior said, her voice not shaking this time. Threats were more her forte, anyhow.

"Now, now, don't do anything hasty," the man, the doctor, said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Warrior could barely hear the words. She knew that she was going to collapse the instant before she did, and shoved the human away from her, ensuring that the girl wouldn't be impaled by Warrior's swords as she fell, though that didn't guarantee that Warrior herself wouldn't.

Warrior smiled at the irony. She was falling now, and maybe wouldn't ever get up, and she'd just made it a point to save the life of a human. It seemed that Avery's preachings about how humans weren't as useless as Warrior insisted were beginning to rub off. That was a scary thought.

But not so scary that Warrior didn't lapse into unconsciousness without a smile on her face.

* * *

Warrior's eyes snapped open and she shot to her feet, before sinking right back down to the roughly-paved concrete with a groan.

"Damn," she swore in a whisper, nearly blinded by the pressure building behind her eyes. Oh not good. Damn, damn, damn!

"Doctor, we've got to go. She could wake up any minute!" They were close. Only around the corner. Stupid, they thought that she'd wake up weak.

"I'm not leaving her. Martha, I know that this is...mad, even for me, but I can't leave her. I just can't. She's important, I know she is, and I can't explain it and I'm asking you to go on faith here. Please, just trust me."

"I do trust you," Martha replied earnestly. "I don't trust her."

"Which is a very good decision on your part, although, slightly lessened by your very, very bad decision." Warrior said coolly. Both of them spun at the sound of her voice, clearly shocked to see her up and about, leaning casually against the brick wall of the alleyway.

"Yeah?" The human snapped defiantly, stepping forward.

Warrior smiled through the pain. "You left me alive. And did I hear someone call me important? That's a new one. Impertinent, oh, definitely yes; arrogant, yes; 'batshit crazy,' new, but still yes. Important? Not so much. So why do you think I'm so important? Why did you let me live?"

"That's because I don't kill people," the man said, stepping in front of Martha. How gentlemanly.

"Yeah?" Warrior asked, turning her attention to him. "Because your little mind game would've killed a human. Most species of aliens too. If I'd have died, you'd have killed someone. Then again, I could have easily killed you, but you took me by surprise. Props for that."

"Look, we're not going to hurt you, we just want to talk. And, by the way, I knew that you weren't human."

"Oh, I doubt that you could hurt me if you tried." Warrior sneered, imitating his British accent. "And knowing that I wasn't human? Well-deducted. Now it's my turn. You are a doctor. You are clearly not human because you broke into my mind, but you have a female, human companion, which means that you must be some kind of softhearted fool. Humans only get in the way. Now, you do have higher than normal brain functionality, so that rules out most species, but you must be very old. I'd say...Age of the Zyions? Yeah, that sounds about right. Or close to it, at least. And yet, despite such high mental capabilities, you are so very stupid because not only did you break into my mind, but you dragged me back here, did _not _kill me – which was foolish – and stashed my swords only around the corner." Warrior cocked her head at him, smiling beatifically. "How am I doing so far?"

"You're still unarmed." Martha countered, looking unnerved.

"Doesn't matter," the doctor said. "Look at her, just look at the way she holds herself. She's a soldier. A brilliant soldier, but a soldier nonetheless."

"Just full of flattery, aren't you? First, I'm important and now brilliant. You are on a roll!" Warrior tried to hide the fact that she was leaning more and more heavily on the wall behind her with sarcasm. But this man was clever, he'd notice. Still, the pain was growing, spreading.

"Well you are brilliant. I mean, look at the way you figured all of that out! That was very good, really, very good. But you're a soldier. You like weapons, you like threats and you like hitting people who hit you back. Thanks for the headache, by the way."

"You're welcome." Warrior snarled, cutting him off. "Now, you're boring me. How about this: I give you three seconds to get out of my way before I start killing people, beginning with your human. How's that sound? One...two...three..." Warrior had barely formed the words when the pain burst into a supernova inside her mind.

And then the pressure was gone, as if it never existed – and it had been replaced with something that made the pain worth it: power. Power so strong that Warrior knew that it could only be hers – and that she had been missing it in the way that one misses something only after they realize that it's gone. Reveling in her new-found strength, Warrior threw up three, four, five illusions, all images of her childhood, spinning in a circle with her arms flung wide with joy. Then Warrior laid eyes on the doctor, and she stopped, her eyes going wide. A sense of familiarity warmed her to her toes; in the man she saw a shared history, a kinship.

A doctor. _The _Doctor!

Then Warrior was moving, quickly closing the gap between them before slapping the Doctor right across the face. Martha cried out but Warrior could barely hear her because the Doctor had crushed her in a hug. Warrior stiffened at the unfamiliar contact, but didn't pull away. Funny, she hit him and he just hugged her.

Finally, Warrior broke away, hitting his arm. "I thought that you were dead!"

"Ow!" the Doctor complained. "Well, not dead, but neither are you, might I add. But who _are _you? I only knew of one person who had that kind of mental ability and she, well, she died." Warrior waved his comment about her not-dying away and grinned.

"What, you mean a little blonde thing, about this high?" she asked, indicating a height just at her chest. "Self-contained-aggression issues up the ass? Yeah, no, she survived. Blew a hole in the universe and got sucked out but still kicking." The Doctor held Warrior at arm's length, studying her.

"Prodigy!" he cried, hugging her again before looking at her again. "You regenerated! And you're ginger! Oh, that's just not fair. Tenth regeneration and I haven't ever been ginger!"

"I'm _not_ ginger." Warrior protested.

"Well, auburn, but it's closer than I've ever been." Warrior didn't recognize this new Doctor. The one she knew was so, so different than the man standing before her. They hadn't been friends back on Gallifrey, but she'd known of him and him of her, as all "famous" citizens knew of one-another. This one was...odd. Eccentric. And talkative. Also, Warrior was having a hard time getting over his hair.

"I'm sorry to interrupt this little reunion, but can someone please explain to me what the _hell _is going on here?" Martha broke in, finally snapping.

"Martha Jones," the Doctor said, beaming. "Meet the Child Prodigy, Time Lady."

"Martha Jones, meet Warrior, Time _Lord_." Warrior corrected. "I don't go by Prodigy anymore. It was pretentious anyway."

"And Warrior is better?" Martha growled.

"If even half the stories are true, then it's well-deserved," the Doctor said, throwing his arm around Martha's shoulders. "Warrior here has saved millions...Hold on a tick. You _blew a hole in the universe and fell through_? Fell through _where_? Not..."

"You never found me because I wasn't anywhere I could've been found." Warrior said through gritted teeth. She didn't like talking about the Void. And the Face of Boe's comment about a growing darkness was still nagging at her.

"You don't mean..."

"Yeah." Warrior said grimly. "That's what I mean."

"Doctor, please listen to me. How do we know that we can trust her? She almost tried to _kill_ us!" Martha objected, interrupting again. "Maybe she is crazy."

"Please, don't be stupid." Warrior said patronizingly. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." Then she smacked her palm on her face. "Oh, damn, I can't believe I almost forgot! Doctor, where's your TARDIS? I've got a...friend...trapped in 2007 and I got sucked out of my own ship – thanks for that – and I've got to go back and get him."

"Well," the Doctor said, running his hand through his crazy hair, "you see, um, well. I lost it. Weeping Angels, long story, but I'm working on getting it back. Come on, I'll show you."

"Doctor!" Martha protested, but neither of them paid her any mind.

"So who's this mate that you've got traveling with you?" the Doctor asked slyly, raising his eyebrows. Warrior didn't know what he was insinuating, but figured whatever it was, it deserved a slap.

"Ow!" the Doctor protested, but he smiled nonetheless.

* * *

"Look, see, this house is going to be old and abandoned in thirty-eight years and a girl named Sally Sparrow will have – "

"Have found it in her time. Clever."

"Right, but she's already found it in 2007, so don't change anything, right? I've also set up a kind of hidden message in these DVDs, I've just got to finish filming it now."

"And how did you get the manuscript for the conversation you're supposed to have with this Sally?"

"She gave it to me in her future."

"I still don't get that bit." Martha commented.

"Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey," the Doctor said. Warrior caught his eye and grinned. Wibbly, wobbly, timey wimey. She liked that. Very apt, actually.

"You go on, I want to look at this some more," she said, waving him off and making a show of looking at the writing he'd scrawled on the wall. As soon as Warrior could hear the Doctor talking in the other room, she slipped the marker she'd slipped out of his pocket and wrote her own message: _Avery, don't blink. Don't argue with me, _she wrote, knowing that he would, as always. _Don't blink. I'll see you soon. Warrior._

She was creating a paradox, she knew that. But Warrior also knew that she was strong enough to maintain it now – at least until that TARDIS returned. Satisfied that she'd done right by Avery, Warrior meandered into the room where the Doctor was filming, swinging her swords absently. The Doctor had kindly given her back her weapons as long as she'd promised to stop threatening Martha with them. Needless to say, Warrior had lied. Not to mention pick-pocketing a gun from a mugger on the way to the house on the edge of London. She'd never been a fan of guns, but Warrior hated how easily she'd been disarmed before. That wasn't going to happen again.

"Are you really going to read that whole thing?" the Doctor asked the camera, reading from the script and snapping Warrior back to attention. He'd missed his calling as an actor, Warrior thought to herself. Very expressive. "Wait a second," the Doctor said suddenly, looking from the script, then to Warrior and back again. "That wasn't there before. Oi!" he said sharply, pointing into the camera. "Who's there that wasn't before?"

"Avery," Warrior said with a proud smile. She knew that he'd find her clue. Clever boy.

"Yes, Avery!" the Doctor said, reading the words that had appeared on the transcript as if from nowhere. "Your Avery? The one you were talking about...You created a paradox, you clever girl!" Warrior smiled to herself, happy that it had worked, but when the Doctor went back to reading the script like normal, she tuned out. At least until Martha tapped on her shoulder.

"A paradox?" she whispered fervently. "How are you doing that? The Doctor explained paradoxes to me...that's impossible."

"It's not impossible, but I'm the only one alive who can use their own abilities to maintain it."

"But you'll die!"

Warrior scoffed. "I won't. And if I do, you won't have to worry about me getting between you and the Doctor anymore, will you?"

"I – it's not – " Martha stammered, blushing.

"Please, I see the way you look at him. Just because I'm over eight-hundred years old doesn't mean I don't know how to read people." Warrior turned away, distracted by a slight twinge on the other side of the paradox. Avery...

"The Lonely Assassins, they used to be called," the Doctor was saying, when he turned his attention back to Warrior. "That's what they called you, too, did you know?" Warrior cocked her head slightly, curiously, like a bird. The Lonely Assassin. She liked that. Again, Warrior felt a tugging sensation in the forefront of her mind, where the paradox was feeding from. What was Avery _doing_? Warrior closed her eyes, trying to use her mind to travel down the thread through time that connected her to Avery. Whatever he was doing, it was draining her strength and that was _not_ a good thing.

"Good luck," the Doctor said, reaching to turn off the camera. Warrior snapped back to attention, seized by a sudden, crippling fear.

"Avery." Warrior said, the words forcing itself from her lips before she could stop it.

"You can't do that!" the Doctor reprimanded sharply. "Isn't one paradox today enough for you?"

"Shut up, I can do what I want." Warrior snapped, moving into the camera's line of sight. "Avery listen to me. I know that you can heal, but this is something you can't save yourself from. Do you understand me?" Warrior said, her green eyes imploring him to listen to her. "You get the TARDIS back to the Doctor and get the hell out. I'll come back for you." She refocused the camera, moving closer. He had to listen to her or he'd be lost forever, she'd have to break the paradox and then she'd never be able to find him again. "You hear me? Because I swear to God, if you get yourself stuck in some godforsaken time-zone while trying to play hero...I'll...I'll – I'll break the universe."

"Hey!" the Doctor said warningly.

"Oh, shut up, Doctor, I've done it before, stop judging me." Warrior said, slamming her fist down, making the table wobble and shake. Warrior leaned in. "Avery," she said, deadly serious. "Don't blink. I'm coming for you." Then she killed the transmission.

"So now we wait." Martha said. "Can't be long now, can it?"

"No," the Doctor said, but he was looking intently at Warrior, who was looking intently away, again feeling the strain of the paradox. "Can I talk to you?" When Warrior didn't answer, he grabbed her wrist, leading her away.

"Don't touch me!" Warrior snapped on instinct, snatching her hand away. She had been so close to finding out whatever Avery was doing! "What do you want?"

"I want," the Doctor said shortly, "to make sure that you know what you're doing. Paradoxes are _dangerous_. And if you're using your own energy to support it..."

"I know what I'm doing." Warrior growled. Time Lord or not, _Doctor _or not, he had no right to criticize her. She was stronger than that.

"You were trapped in the Void for five-hundred years," the Doctor said softly, intensely. "You didn't recognize me as a Time Lord immediately and your power was sealed off. Those are symptoms of – "

"Void sickness, I know." Warrior supposed that she had always known, though it had taken the Face of Boe's warning for the answer to truly come to light. Void sickness. A growing darkness was one way to put it. Another way was possibly one of the worst mental afflictions in the whole of the universe. "I'm not stupid. I knew the risks and I took them anyway. And you know what? I did the same thing when I ripped open the Void and sucked in half of the marauding Dalek fleet." The Doctor looked as if he wanted to say something else, but the familiar whirr of an engine drew both of their attentions.

"The TARDIS!" Martha cried, rushing forward, but she stopped dead when the doors suddenly opened.

"Avery?"

* * *

_**So how'd I do? Review people!**_

_**~Fae**_


	9. Chapter 9

"Ah, you must be the famous Avery!" the Doctor said jovially, hugging him. Avery just stood there. "Warrior's told me all about you."

"No I haven't." Warrior contradicted him.

"No, she's right, but that was the polite thing to say. I'm trying to be polite now," the Doctor said, his voice suddenly far away, remembering. Avery still didn't say anything, but was staring at Warrior with his starless eyes. "I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is my friend, Martha Jones." He said, gesturing to the human girl by his side.

"Did you leave them to die?" Avery snarled suddenly, whirling on the Doctor. "Sally Sparrow and Larry? Your TARDIS left them. Did you know that they're probably dead?"

The Doctor looked taken aback for a moment, before recovering. "They didn't die. The Angels surrounded the TARDIS, yes? They _saw_ one another. They're frozen in stone. Forever."

"You're sure?" Avery demanded.

"Positive." With a reluctant grunt, Avery nodded.

"How did you stay with the TARDIS, anyway?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"I taught him override voice commands." Warrior answered for Avery, their eyes still locked. _Screw it,_ she thought to herself, surging forward and throwing her arms around his neck before pulling away, embarrassed. "And if you _ever_ do that to me again I'll kick you ass."

"Do what?" Avery shot back. "You were the one who got sucked out of the ship – I presume that was your doing, Doctor?"

"I meant whatever you were doing in 2007, you idiot! You realize that I was using my own energy to support that paradox you were screwing with, don't you?"

"I wasn't doing anything!" Avery protested.

_"Okay!"_ the Doctor interrupted. "You two can finish this little argument later, but now I think we should get _your_ ship, Warrior."

"Right." Warrior agreed, still glaring at Avery as the Doctor led the four of them into his ship. Warrior couldn't help but compare his TARDIS to hers as she entered. The control room glowed with yellow light, the controls themselves not sleek and computerized, but ragged, with wires poking out here and there; and no display screen to be seen. Nor could she sense nanogenes or holographic technology throughout the cabin. And it was quiet. Silent.

Warrior liked hers better.

"So, Avery, how did you get stuck with this one?" Martha asked, jabbing her thumb at Warrior and clearly hoping to find another Warrior-hating soul in Avery. Warrior couldn't really blame her for thinking that they hated each-other, based on the argument she'd just seen.

"Aliens wanted to kill me." Avery answered shortly. "And then I wouldn't leave."

"Why were they after you?" Martha queried further. Avery looked to Warrior with a small, mischievous smile.

"Want to show her?" he asked, grinning. Warrior understood immediately and smirked.

"Are you really offering?" she teased. "Or are you just trying to get back on my good side."

"Offering. And you don't have a good side."

"You got that right." Warrior said, lifting her gun and pulling the trigger. Both the Doctor and Martha screamed. Martha jumped backwards, trying to stay out of range, whereas the Doctor sprang forward, brandishing a long thin wand with an LED light at the end.

"What did you do?" the Doctor demanded. "_What did you do_?" Warrior looked at him, him and Martha and bit her lip, trying desperately to withhold her laughter.

"Get up, idiot, clearly they didn't think that it was funny." Warrior said, hauling Avery to his feet. The hole in his chest grew smaller and smaller before spitting out the bullet and closing completely. Warrior held the smushed bullet up to the light before slipping it into her pocket.

"Explain!" the Doctor ordered. Warrior turned to him with a steely glint in her eye and Avery winced. He knew that look and it meant that all hell was going to break loose.

"Do not give me orders, Doctor." Warrior said dangerously. She didn't care if he was the only Time Lord left in existence, he had no right to tell her what to do. Ever.

"Explain yourselves!"

"Don't push her, mate," Avery warned, fully functional. "She gets pissy when people push her."

"You..." Martha gasped. "You shot him!"

"Yes, very observant." Warrior said scathingly, but she was looking at the Doctor. "Let's see if you can figure it out, eh, Doctor? You're supposed to be the best and brightest. Let's see you work it out."

"But he's _human_." Warrior snorted and the Doctor shot her a dark look. "Right, you think humans are useless. So he's got to be some kind of hybrid – pardon the term – but that's impossible," he said, understanding dawning. "Half-human, _half-Zyion_?"

"Give the man a prize!" Warrior said, clapping mockingly. "I almost just killed myself to get him back, you really think I'd shoot him so soon? Granted, it'll probably end up trying to kill him eventually, but not _that_ quickly."

"Thanks for that." Avery said, but his tone was light.

"Oh, don't pout, you'll heal."

"My God, Doctor, they're mad, the pair of them!"

Warrior turned her head towards the human and laughed. "Oh, yes. But so is he," she said, pointing to the Doctor.

"I'm sorry, but can I talk to you a moment?" the Doctor said, pulling Warrior out of the control room and into the hall. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded. "The only two Time Lords left in existence and you want to fight?"

"I always want to fight, Doctor." Warrior answered, not backing down.

"Right, because you're a _soldier. _Didn't you ever want to be _more _than that? More than just a killing machine?"

"You want me to apologize. I won't. This is who I am." Warrior said.

"But _why_? Why are you so combative? And why me? I haven't done anything to you, have I? Because, I might've, you know, time-lines and all the rest; my life doesn't exactly happen in order."

"You...you remind me of someone I used to fight with. My brother." Warrior admitted quietly. "He..." she trailed off.

"Who was he?"

"Someone who died, long before the Time War." Warrior said. "Someone history will never remember."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, taking her hand. "I am so sorry. I've had hundreds of years to cope and you've been so focused on finding someone..."

"Soldiers ignore emotion." Warrior said, squaring her shoulders. "And so do I. But if you don't look for more of us, clearly, then what do you do?"

"Travel. Try to be in the right place at the right time. Save Earth, over and over and over. Earth is somewhat of a hotspot."

"I will never understand that."

"Oh, don't give up on humanity!" the Doctor said, clapping her on the back. "They'll always surprise you – and besides, you're traveling with one!"

"Am not!" Warrior said. "He's only half-human and besides, he wouldn't leave. I threatened him, I did, but he heals. No fear."

"Smart lad. But now I've got a question for you," the Doctor said with a serious look. "I sound English, so does every regeneration I've every had. Why do you sound like you're from America?" Warrior gaped. He was teasing her about her accent. After everything, he was making fun of how she talked.

"You're an ass, you know that?"

"Yeah, but it makes me lots of fun at parties," the Doctor said with a grin. "So where is that from, exactly? Not Southern, no. Maybe New England? Rhode Island, maybe? But you don't do that annoying thing where you add "r's" to words that end with "a," so that's not an option."

"I do not have a Rhode Island accent!" Warrior said, smacking him on the arm, but her voice lacked its usual biting edge. "So, there really aren't any more?"

"You were stuck in the Void. I swear, if there are any more to be found, I'll find them, but looking...failing year after year, decade after decade. It becomes too much."

"Alright then." Warrior said. "Traveling?"

"Traveling," the Doctor agreed, holding out his arm. After only a moment's hesitation, Warrior took it.

* * *

"You found one." Avery said when they were back together in her TARDIS. "Another Time Lord."

"Yeah." Warrior said, smiling to herself. "I'm not alone anymore."

"Well what about me?" Avery asked, his tone dark. Warrior looked up curiously. What about him? "Now that you've got the Doctor, what're you going to do with me?"

"Do with you?" Warrior repeated. "Dude, really? - Oh damn, I do sound like an American – Avery, I'm not going to _do_ anything. Since you refused to leave, I haven't _done_ anything! You are the reason that you're here, not me. Nothing is going to change!" she insisted, then paused, a thought having dawned on her. "Unless...do you want to leave? Now that I've got the Doctor, do you want to go home?"

"No!" Avery said, a little too quickly. "No."

"You hear that, Doc?" Warrior called.

"Loud and clear." The Doctor's face appeared on a holo-screen, smiling down on them. "So where to? Humans get first pick."

"I dunno any planets..." Avery trailed off uncertainly.

"I do!" Martha said quickly. "What about that underwater place? Crystal Sea or something like that?"

"Er – " Warrior said. "Can we not?"

"Now, now, I said humans pick. Crystal Sea it is!" the Doctor cried, launching his TARDIS into the Vortex. Warrior had no choice but to do the same.

"Why don't you want to go to this shiny ocean or whatever?" Avery asked after he had changed into a bathing suit. Warrior glared at him. "Oh quit glaring, you going to give yourself wrinkles. What's this – " His words were cut off as the ship landed with a jolt. "That was fast."

"This place is close to Earth. Relatively. And you know I had enemies whose hate for me spans lifetimes?"

"Yeah?"

"Well it goes the opposite way too," she said. "Keep that in mind."

"I love it here," the ship said, speaking up for the first time. Though Warrior knew her beloved vessel was happy by its contented humming that echoed throughout the cabin. "You'll love the exterior." Warrior groaned, kneading her temples with her fingertips as she exited the TARDIS.

"Ah, the Crystal Sea. Lovely place. Never really been here before, have you?" the Doctor asked Warrior casually. "Hope you brought swimming trunks."

"This is going to suck." Warrior grumbled to herself, looking around. They'd landed on one of the rare pieces of dry land on the entire planet. She snuck a look backwards, groaning as she saw her TARDIS' disguise: a ten-foot-tall diamond spire that twisted up into the deep blue sky. And the Doctor's ship was still a blue police box.

"Why didn't your ship change?" Warrior asked.

"Chameleon circuit jammed," the Doctor said, stripping off his shirt and jacket and diving into the clear waters. The Crystal Sea was 99% water, with rare pockets of crystallized rock as landmasses. The cities were underwater, all made out of the "diamond" rock formations found at the bottom of the oceans, making the whole planet seem to sparkle and shine. However, the natives were oxygen-breathing, though scaled and painted bright aqua colors, and the submerged cities were encased in glass to keep it dry and oxygenated. Avery and Martha both followed suit, whooping with delight at the fresh crispness of the water. Warrior dove into the sparkling waters last, wincing. This was going to end all sorts of badly.

"Take a deep breath!" the Doctor advised. "The natives are friendly, they'll give us a hand." Warrior winced. They'd give her more than just a hand. Warrior plunged into the crystal-clear water and swam towards the glowing city in the distance, wincing when she saw the pink and orange shapes darting through the water towards them.

"The second coming!" one of them cried as soon as it saw her, its voice only slightly distorted by bubbles. "The Savior has returned to us!" The native, who Warrior recognized as female, gaped at her, while her companion fitted the Doctor, Avery and Martha with oxygen masks. Warrior slipped her own over her face, quickly sending a message to the others.

_Just go with it and don't ask any questions, please_. Avery was unmoved by her telepathy, but the Doctor and Martha both jumped.

"Please, Savior, come with us," the woman said, leading them into the city.

"Savior?" the Doctor hissed in her ear when they all had ground under their feet again. "What is _that_ about?"

"I might've chased a hostile species here when I was younger." Warrior said softly through her teeth. "And now they think I was sent from the gods to save them in times of need. They think _I'm_ a god."

"You weren't kidding when you said that some people didn't hate you." Avery said quietly.

"How does a soldier win over the hearts and minds of an entire race?" the Doctor wondered aloud.

"By exterminating the species that was killing them."

"You did _what?"_

"I had my orders." Warrior replied stiffly before one of the Tak – the indigenous – came up to her, bowing and scraping.

"Uh, rise." Warrior said uncomfortably. Her father had instructed her on how to handle the attention but that didn't mean she enjoyed it. "These are my friends, Martha, Avery and the Doctor. They're...travelers."

"Of course, Savior, they will be treated with the utmost respect," the Tak man said, bowing again. "How long with you be staying with us, goddess of fire?"

"Not sure." Warrior said. "But I'm sure that these three would love a tour around the city." Avery and Martha were busy staring at the Tak. They weren't really that odd-looking, as far as aliens went. They were vaguely humanoid, with triangular heads and scaled, brightly-colored bodies. Maybe it was the four arms, or the webbed hand and feet, or possibly the wing-like protrusions that sprouted from their backs to help them swim, but other than that, Warrior really didn't see what was worth staring at.

"Those two," the Doctor corrected her. "I think I'm gonna stick with the goddess of fire for this one."

"Goddess...does he blaspheme?"

"No, that's just the way he is, you get used to it." Warrior said.

"If you are content, then we are also. Please, friends of our Savior, come with us and enjoy." Avery looked to Warrior and Martha to the Doctor. Both nodded.

_Martha_, Warrior projected the thought into the human's head. _Look out for Avery. He's an idiot._ Martha didn't gasp this time, but nodded almost imperceptibly. Warrior smiled to herself and turned away.

"I saw that," the Doctor whispered in her ear.

"I don't know what you're taking about."

"You're playing nice with Martha! So there are a few hearts buried in you after all!"

"Still don't know what you're talking about." Warrior insisted, walking ahead of him. "Come on, hurry up."

"What's your hurry?" Warrior fixed him with a deadly serious look.

_Look at them! _Warrior said, even her mental voice a hushed whisper. _I used to come here all the time when I was younger – the Tak are peaceful and carefree. I've never seen them this agitated. _

"So you do notice these things."

_Be quiet. They can hear like you wouldn't believe. Look at how relieved they are when they see me. Something bad is happening and they think that I can stop it._

"Well you probably can." Warrior shot him another look, but the Doctor just gazed around, unaware at how odd he looked, carrying on with a one-sided conversation. "I mean, I've seen what you can do and that was with the Void clogging up your head. Speaking of which, we never really talked about that." The Doctor's hand snaked around Warrior wrist and she stopped, wincing.

_Don't!_ But the warning came too late. The second the Doctor touched her, the Tak sprang into action, two appearing out of nowhere to grab his arms, others surrounding them with various weapons and other pointy objects.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey now, let's everybody calm down," the Doctor said, not resisting. "Warrior, you want to tell your acolytes to let me go?"

"Blasphemer!" one of the Tak – a burly male – shouted angrily, shaking his spear.

"No, no he's not he's just from the North," Warrior said quickly before the Doctor got stabbed. "You know how they are up there, not worshiping daily and all of that. I'll have a chat with them, and with him, but right now he's with me, so would you mind?"

"Out of respect for you, goddess of fire, we obey," the male said and the others quickly withdrew.

"Yeah and that's the other thing, what's this goddess of fire business?"

"This is a _water planet_," Warrior hissed under her breath, exasperated. "And in case you haven't noticed, I like to blow shit up."

"And swear. You do swear a lot. Maybe you need counseling."

"Right because it's my _swearing_ that I need counseling for." Warrior snapped at him, then turned her attention to the male Tak. "What's been happening?"

"I am taking you to our king, Most High. He will explain, but I can tell you that your timing is most auspicious."

"Good," the Doctor murmured to himself. "I love it when things are auspicious, it makes me feel so much more important."

"Shut up, you!" the male Tak snarled, his wings snapping open for a moment in his agitation. "We have arrived."

"I am so blessed," a bright, aqua-colored Tak with an enormous flowery headdress said, rising leisurely from his throne of sapphires, "to witness the coming of our own fire goddess." Warrior wanted to kick the wall. This wasn't the same king that she'd known, but they were identical in mannerisms and that pissed her off. She hadn't liked the old king either. "But who is this companion that was not foretold?"

"I'm the Doctor."

_And the Doctor is going to keep quiet unless he wants to get skewered. They're antsy as hell, can't you see? Let me handle this, will you? _The Doctor shrugged and Warrior took that as a yes.

"Right, what's your name?"

"King Herrit Nanin Jove Hudassie – "

"King Herrit, got it." Warrior said, cutting him off. "Alright, King Herrit, I want a full status update. What's changed in the past 500 years?"

"You don't know?" the king asked innocently.

"Oh, you know how it is being a god: traveling, settling arguments, smiting kings who talk back to me." Warrior said, her eyes glittering like dark emeralds. "Do I need to ask again?"

"No," the king murmured hastily. "Please, come with me, I will show you to the Halls of History."

_Be careful around this one_. Warrior projected. _There's something about him that I don't trust. _The Doctor gave her a look that said "you don't trust anyone," but nodded nonetheless. Warrior squared her shoulders. Time to get back to business.

* * *

_**So how'd I do? I'd love some reviews on this guys!**_

_**~Fae**_


	10. Chapter 10

"As you can see by our records, little has changed – except for progress," the king said, gesturing to a projection on the wall and beaming down on Warrior and the Doctor. Warrior wanted to slug him. There was just something about his pointy little grin that made her angry.

Then again, it wasn't hard to make her angry.

"Yes, this is good." Warrior said, trying to be gracious. "Mind if my friend and I take a closer look? Alone?"

"Has our fire goddess finally found herself a fire god?" the king asked, wiggling his eyebrows. If Warrior _had _been a fire goddess, she'd have cut him in half – as it was, she barely resisted. But instead, Warrior put on a brilliant smile and linked her arm through the Doctor's.

"If that was any of your business, mortal, I'd have announced it to you. But since you insisted: Yes. And we fire gods always pick one place to raze to the ground to consummate our love." Warrior looked at the king pointedly. "Still haven't picked, yet."

"Oh, course, Savior, you may have time to browse the records...privately," the king said, striding out.

"I thought that you were going to stab him," the Doctor said quietly once they were alone, sounding relieved and...impressed?

"Yeah, me too. Now, come on, god of fire, start digging. There's something bothering me and you're going to help me figure out what it is." Warrior said, pulling her absurdly long hair out of her face, stabbing it into place at the top of her head with a knife.

And so they went to work, the Doctor checking the books and physical records, while Warrior went straight to all things electronic. The Tak didn't exactly have...computers, per se, but something similar, more organic than most technology. Fitting for this underwater world.

"How are you doing that?" Warrior's eyes snapped open and her concentration shattered.

"Dude, really?"

"My God, you really are American," the Doctor commented drily. "But those diagrams you just brought up, the files from before, how are you getting into the mainframe?"

"Piece of the TARDIS," Warrior said, picking it up and showing it to him. "Looks like a glittery knife, but lets me hack into just about anything."

"But that's impossible," the Doctor said, staring at the knife with narrowed eyes. "Just because it's a piece of your TARDIS doesn't mean it should give you that kind of control."

"Right. Because it's not just a piece of the TARDIS. It's a piece of me, too."

"But that's – "

"Impossible, yes, you said that before. And no it's not." Warrior's eyes widened, superhuman sight tracking something on the screen that she'd been watching out of the corner of her eye. A video-feed. "Come here, look at this," she said, pointing to the screen. "Look. Do you see that?"

"It's a static background. Not live," the Doctor said immediately. "They're using a loop. A video loop. That's brilliant."

"I know that place. It's a temple."

"_Your_ temple?"

"Yes. I used to stay there all the time when I was younger." Here was the proof that she'd needed. Something was going on here – something to do with that temple.

The people needed her. And she'd abandoned them. Looked like they needed to get in line with the rest of the universe. "And if this is there, that means that there must be something else there too. Something the dear old king doesn't want us to know about."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Warrior said with a sardonic smile.

"I'll grab the sonic."

* * *

"So how do you know Warrior?" Martha asked Avery curiously as they walked through the crystalline walls of the palace. "You two seem so different."

"That might be because I'm human and she's not." Avery said sarcastically. "Or, half-human."

"But _how_? I met the Doctor when my hospital was transported to the moon, but what about you two? I'm going to keep asking you until you give me a straight answer."

"Fine. Needy aliens needed their ship repaired. I heal, so they needed me. Warrior barged in with her swords and started cutting off heads like some kind of weed-whacker, then grabbed me and ran." Avery shrugged. "There's no place for me on Earth, so I went with her."

"But why would you choose to stay?"

"Why do you stay with the Doctor?" Avery countered.

"I...I wanted something more. Always, my entire life. Didn't know what I wanted, though, until he found me." Martha looked up sharply as Avery barked out a laugh. "What?" she demanded.

"Nothing. You wanted to see the stars, I get it."

"Then why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm not." Avery said. "I always thought of the Time Lords as, well, _warriors_, like Warrior. But your Doctor, he's not. He's different."

"_She's _different. The Doctor is older." Martha said. "But didn't you ever feel...afraid? That she'll snap all of a sudden and kill you?"

"One; she can't. I'll heal for virtually anything unless my head comes off. And no. Don't get me wrong, she's scary as hell and that temper of hers is intense, but still, no. What about your Doctor?" Avery asked. "His little fit over Warrior shooting me wasn't exactly keeping calm, cool, and collected."

"She did shoot you."

"It was a joke! And what was that little glowy thing he pointed at her."

"Sonic screwdriver. It does...virtually everything."

"Why would someone put sonic into a screwdriver?" Avery mused aloud, running his hands through his hair like he did when she was thinking.

"Why would someone shoot another person!" Avery grinned at the exasperation in Martha's tone, then stopped, hearing arguing in the hall.

"The goddess has returned!" someone said in a muted voice. "Sire, please, you must consider the possibility..."

"You will remember your place!" the second Tak, Avery assumed that he was the king, snarled. "Things with proceed as planned." The two Tak kept talking, but they were quickly moving out of range.

"Where are you going?" Martha demanded in a hissed whisper as Avery started to follow, slipping, nearly invisible, through the shadows of the hall.

"They were talking about Warrior," Avery said, as if that explained everything. Warrior's message flashed through Martha's head : _Look out for Avery. _Oh, damn. Now she _had _to follow him. "You're coming?" he asked when he saw Martha trailing behind him.

"Well I'm sure not letting you go off by yourself." Martha said, smiling slightly, suddenly reminded of the Doctor. He was always running into mad, dangerous situations too.

"The Jardin will not be pleased at this new development," the king snarled to the other Tak male. "The goddess with have to be...distracted."

"What did you have in mind?" Avery moved crept closer, trying to hear what the king was saying, waving Martha forward with him.

"Oh, I don't know," the king said darkly. "Maybe something to do with..." The voices trailed off and Avery snuck ever closer. But something was wrong. Neither Tak was talking anymore. Almost like they were...waiting.

"Get back!" Martha shouted suddenly, pulling Avery backwards as the king's companion lashed out with a short knife. Martha made it, but the blade slashed through the fabric of Avery's shirt, slicing through skin and muscle. Avery groaned, falling backwards, his hand splayed open over the wound. It wasn't healing as fast as it should've – there was something flesh-eating in the blade.

"Martha," Avery said, his voice ragged as he struggled to stand, kicking the Tak away from him, "get out of here!"

"I won't leave you!" she insisted, but the Tak were already wrenching Avery's arms behind his back and more were approaching.

"Find Warrior!" Avery ordered, his already pale face ashen. Was this what it was like for people who couldn't heal? Damn, no wonder people went out of there way to avoid pain. It was a _bitch_. Martha looked back once, but Avery's black eyes flashed in warning and she turned and ran as the Tak swarmed the hall. She had to find the Doctor; she had to find them both.

Oh.

Warrior was going to kill her.

* * *

Warrior bit back a growl as she saw the temple completely abandoned, as if it was haunted or something. Since the Tak recognized that she was air-breathing like them, the temple was built as an extension of the palace, under the dome, and when she'd known it, the temple had been a hotspot of activity. Children would play under the statues while their parents prayed and made offerings – offerings that Warrior always made a point to give back, when she was there.

"I thought that they loved you," the Doctor whispered.

"They do. Or did. Haven't been here in a while, remember?" Warrior hissed back, then drew her swords. "There's something going on in there and I'll be damned if I don't find out what it is."

"I don't think you should go in there," the Doctor said, laying a hand on her arm.

"It's my responsibility." Warrior snapped, jerking her arm away from his touch. "And I know," she said, tapping her forehead with a dark smile. "I'm almost as old as you, Doctor, you don't have to tell me." Warrior didn't wait for his reply – hell, she didn't even want to know what was going through that brilliant mind of his. Whatever it was, if it hadn't already occurred to her, she didn't want to hear it.

She bolted to the temple, jumping up and through the window without waiting to see if the Doctor was following her. She didn't care if he wanted to help or not, she was going to go through with it.

Warrior slunk through the halls, picking her way through the shadows. There was something fundamentally _wrong_ here. She could sense it. Warrior cast her mind out, looking for whatever was causing the mental disturbances, but it was like they were blocking her, whatever they were. And that was not good. Anything strong enough to stop _her_ mind wasn't something that the Tak could stand up against. But if that was the case, then why hadn't whatever it was spread to the rest of the planet? Why localize at the temple? _Her_ temple, no less? Warrior froze in her tracks, hearing voices coming from behind her.

"Doctor, stay still." Warrior ordered, then threw up an illusion to cover the pair of them.

"The boy is...resilient," one Tak whispered to another. Both of them were the blood red of the king's elite guard. "But our weapons are taking their toll." Warrior wondered idly who they were talking about – and why a Tak child would be tortured in a place of worship.

"Come on," Warrior instructed. "But stay quiet and move slow."

"How are you doing this?" the Doctor whispered in her ear.

"I was Prodigy, remember? Super-child of the Time Lords. I've always been able to do stuff like this – this is actually pretty basic for me."

"That's amazing. Absolutely amazing."

"Shh!" Warrior hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth. The two Tak guards had vanished inside a dark room and there was something in there. Something bad. "Can you feel that?"

"Vaguely," the Doctor answered and looked like he was going to say more, but a sound from within the room cut him off.

A cry of pain. From an all-too-familiar voice. In an instant, Warrior's swords were locked in an offensive position, her mind sharpened and ready to wreak mental havoc. Maintaining the illusion, she ran into the room, stopping dead when she saw what was inside.

Avery.

Avery, strapped to a wooden post in the middle of the room, covered in slowly-healing stab wounds. Just that made Warrior want to run in swinging, but the other figure drew her attention. A ten-foot-tall creature covered in a mesh of scales and membrane. A Jardin.

"A Jardin?" the Doctor gasped. "But I thought that they all died out centuries ago."

"Yeah," Warrior whispered, looking up at the alien's face with hatred. "Yeah. That was me."

* * *

**_NOT AVERY?_**

**_Mwahaha, how I love cliffhangers. Thanks to all who reviewed, but I'd love some more feedback from you lot!_**

**_~Fae_**


	11. Chapter 11

"You _killed off_ the Jardin?" the Doctor demanded. Warrior clapped her hand over his mouth.

_Shut up! _she snarled, her mental voice reverberating with malice. _You're old, Doctor – do you remember the havoc they wreaked across the universe? Billions of people – dozens of planets, all destroyed because of _them_! I did the universe a favor._

"You do not have the right to pick who lives and who dies," the Doctor hissed, his eyes dark.

"The hell I don't!" Warrior burst out aloud. "How many people have you let die, Doctor, to save someone you care about? Just think of this at that, only in reverse." Warrior disabled the illusion around herself, leaving the Doctor hidden. He wasn't a fighter, he had no purpose in this battle.

"Wow," Warrior said, strolling into the open as casually as if she were walking into a neighborhood diner for a quick bite. "Damn, I knew you lot got big, but this is overdoing it. Ever heard of Weight-Watchers? It's supposed to be this great diet program on Earth. Fantastic results, you should try it."

"Warrior..." Avery gasped from the corner, the one word sounding as if it took all of his strength. "They're here...for..."

"Me, I know." Warrior smirked as the Jardin looked down on her, its ugly, half-reptilian face twisted into a mask of hatred. "See, I'd guess that this one is a little pissed at me because I killed his people." Warrior drew her swords, grinning, taunting it. "Every. Last. One."

"We are not so different," the Jardin rumbled in its voice like falling rocks. "You are alone too, Time Lord. Your people died like animals."

"Animals can kill a lot of people," Warrior agreed. "And we did." She needed to keep it talking – if it was talking then it's mental defenses weren't up. Jardin: dumb as bricks but with incredible mental capacities. Evolution loved screwing with her sometimes. "Er, I did. Time Lords, gotta love 'em, but they weren't really for fighting. That's why they had me. They got to sit back and relax while I did all the dirty work. Dirty work like chasing your species here and exterminating them, how did you put it? Like animals. Vermin, more like." The Jardin howled in rage and Warrior attacked, concentrating almost all of her not inconsiderable power into a single, continuous blast. The monster fell to the ground, clawed hands pawing desperately at its head.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Warrior said, her voice almost gentle."Don't worry, you'll be with your people soon."

"Warrior!" the Doctor shouted, his voice disembodied under the illusion. "Avery!" Warrior whipped around, throwing arm already pulled back, a small knife balanced precariously on her fingertips.

"He told me," the king said in a strangled voice, appearing as if from nowhere. "He told me that you were not a goddess, but a _liar_. He said that you would come back." Warrior moved closer, not looking at the king, but at the serrated blade he had pressed to Avery's throat. "You kill him and I'll kill your little human pet. Oh yes, the Jardin told me what he was." Warrior snarled wordlessly, keeping her eyes on the king and Avery, but extending a hand to the Jardin. The creature screamed – the last sound of its life – before slumping onto the ground, dead. The king howled in rage, cursing at Warrior.

"I may not be one of your gods," Warrior said in a voice that resonated with power. "But I am just as powerful and you can be damn sure that I'll make you pay. Give me the human or _you _die, Tak king."

_Doctor,_ Warrior thought hard, sending the message to him, still hidden. _You need to get out of here. _She knew that the king wasn't going to give up – she could see it in his eyes, the murderous rage burning there. _I'm not going to have enough power to hide you in about ten seconds. Don't argue. Just get out._

"Suffer like we have suffered!" the king shouted. Warrior's knife whipped through the air, but not fast enough to stop the king from plunging his blade into Avery's throat. The human convulsed, clutching at his neck, his face and hands wet with crimson blood, but only for a moment. The king dropped like a stone as Warrior's knife pierced his skull and shredded his brain into little slivers before coming out of the back of his head and sticking in the opposite wall. Warrior didn't wait, rushing to Avery's body and lifting the dead human into her arms.

"Warrior!" the Doctor shouted, visible now. "How could you – you could've – you _let him kill Avery_!"

"No I didn't." Warrior said, carrying Avery out of the room, her voice tight with effort. From what, the Doctor had no idea. She didn't make it far before she had to stop, slumping over, using the wall for support.

"Warrior, stop. He's gone. This is just a shell."

"He'll heal," Warrior said shortly. "Doctor, get Avery back to my TARDIS. I don't care what happens to me, but get him back. The nanogenes will be able to heal him faster than his body would on its own."

"But his _mind_. It's gone, Warrior. This isn't Avery, and even if you heal his body, his mind has moved on. It's gone."

"No," Warrior said with a pained smiled. "It's in mine."

* * *

Warrior opened her eyes in a dark room. An antechamber. Warrior sighed softly. She hadn't been here in too long. A figure sat in the corner, huddled in on itself and facing away from her.

"Avery?" Warrior murmured softly, touching his shoulder. The human spun, his dark eyes wide with fear. He tried to jump up, but Warrior's vise-like grip on his arm held him still."Avery, you need to remember. I know this is disorienting, but I need you to calm down."

"I died." Avery croaked. "He killed me. You let him kill me!"

"No I didn't." Warrior said, her green eyes clear and bright. "You're still alive. Look, you're talking to me, okay?"

"What if he killed you too?" Warrior snorted.

"Yeah, no. Funny, cute. No." Warrior said, smirking. "We're still alive, both of us. Besides, if we both really were dead, I wouldn't be here. I killed the king, by the way. Thought you'd like to know."

"Good." Avery snarled. Warrior looked at him, surprised. She'd expected some kind of lecture on the sanctity of all life or something like that. But Avery didn't look like he was in any mood to forgive anyone. "He was using me to lure you in. That monster was going to kill you. It told me."

"I'm sorry." Warrior said. Now it was Avery's turn to look up in surprise. Warrior never apologized. Never had before, at least, and Avery had fully expected to go through the vast expanses of time and space without hearing her say "sorry" once. "I'm sorry that they hurt you to get to me."

"You saved me. We're even." Avery said, standing. Warrior grabbed him by the arm in silence, leading him out of the antechamber and into the sunlight. Vast fields of rust-red grass carpeted the ground as far as the eye could see. Trees with golden leaves burned like fire in the twin golden sunlight, shimmering, reflecting, and setting the whole sky aflame. Avery had never seen anything like it.

"Where are we?" he asked, but Warrior didn't seem to hear him. She too was gazing off into the distance, entranced by the two suns in the sky. "Warrior?"

"This – this is my home-world. This is Gallifrey."

"But you said that it burned. Hell, I _saw_ it burning!"

"This is what it was. What I remember it as."

"Just cut it out with the word games!" Avery snapped, breaking away from her. "Where the bloody hell are we?" Warrior turned, fixing him with a look.

"We're in my mind. This _is_ my mind. I took your consciousness and hid it inside my own. The Doctor is going to get your body back to the TARDIS so it can heal."

"You did _what_?"

"Funny, that's the oddest translation for "thank you" I've ever heard." Warrior said coolly.

"You – you can't do that! No one can do that, it's impossible!"

"Clearly, I can." Warrior said. She took a deep breath before continuing. "Avery, do you know why they called my the Child Prodigy? Because at six years old I followed my brother to his initiation, when he was shown the Untempered Schism. I followed him and I saw the whole of time and space spread out before me, and do you know what I did? When most of us run away in terror, I jumped. I jumped into a rip in the fabric of time and space and I survived. _That_ is not meant to happen, not for anyone. But they knew that I was different – more than any Time Lord that had come before me. That's why I have the abilities that I do – I was born different. There's nothing in the universe quite like me." Warrior finished bitterly.

"So you took my mind...out of my body...and now we're both there? How are _you_ here?"

"I've introverted." Warrior said, regaining her collected composure. "Took shelter in my mind. Usually it's for emergencies only, but I needed to keep you from hurting yourself in here. My mind isn't the nicest place to be in the best of times." Avery wanted to demand an explanation for that very cryptic remark, but Warrior wasn't one to answer personal questions. Avery was surprised that she'd shared as much as she had already.

"But how are we going to get _out_?" he asked instead.

"I can whenever I want. But you. You're difficult." Warrior said with a teasing smile. "Your body isn't stable enough for your mind to return just yet."

"So I'm stuck."

Warrior looked at him seriously, eyes hard as emeralds. "I'm not leaving you." For a long moment there was silence, before Warrior smiled suddenly. "Come on, I've got to show you something. You aren't going to believe this." Then she took off, leaving Avery rushing to keep up. Warrior knew the way – she knew exactly where she wanted to go. She led Avery through the fiery fields and into a gleaming building that shone gold and green, like the turning of he leaves in autumn on Earth. Though the winding hallways until they finally came to a set of golden doors. Warrior pushed them open without hesitation, grinning like a kid on Christmas. Avery gaped as he walked inside, at first unable to even understand what he was seeing. Sparkling orbs of various colors floated all over the room, from the floor to the ceiling, wall-to-wall. They threw light patterns onto the walls, designs so beautiful that Avery could only stare. In the very center, however, was the biggest of them all: a glowing sphere that shone like the brightest star.

"They're beautiful," Avery said softly. "But _what_ are they?"

"Me, sort of." Warrior said. "The core of who I am. At least, that's the easy way to explain. But that's nothing. Check this out:" Warrior grinned as she placed her hand in the center sphere, laughing with jubilation when the orb exploded, sending billions of bright lights raining down on then – a three-dimensional star map. "Now pick a star, any star." Avery lightly brushed his hand against one of the pinpricks of light, jumping slightly when it felt warm against his skin. As soon as he touched it, a hologram of the planetary system flickered to life.

"What _is_ all this?"

"This is everything I know about the universe. I'm a Time Lord – time and space are essentially what I'm made up of."

"And some stunning anger-management issues," Avery said with a smirk.

"Yes, those too. But whereas most of my people have to learn about the universe themselves, I sort of...knew already. Like instinct. This is what I know. Oh, and don't touch that one," Warrior said, gesturing to an enormous blue orb in the corner. "It's full of nasties. Long story, don't ask." And for once he didn't.

Avery looked like he couldn't stayed there forever, looking up stars and planets until the end of time, but a _boom _shook the foundations of the entire room and both of them, half-human and Time Lord, stopped dead.

"What was that?" Avery asked. Warrior didn't answer, her face hardening into a cold mask that could only mean trouble before racing out of the room. "Warrior! Come back!" Warrior could barely hear him as she barreled through the halls of the golden temple. When Avery finally caught up to her she was frozen in place, swords extended and aimed at something that he couldn't see.

"What is it?"

"Avery, get back inside," Warrior said coldly before suddenly exploding into motion and shoving him roughly to the ground. Where he had been standing just second before were enormous gouge marks in the earth.

"Why can't I see it?"

"Because I don't want you to!" Warrior replied, dodging the invisible thing and slashing viciously upwards with her sword.

"Warrior!" Avery roared. "Stop being so bloody stupid and show me what you're fighting!"

"Fine!" Warrior shouted, extending a hand towards him. She winced on his behalf – this would hurt. Avery winced and clutched at his head, incapacitated for the moment. The very same moment that the creature chose to advance on him. Warrior snarled and leaped in front of him, stabbing and slashing at the thing. Avery looked up, gasping.

"What – what is it?"

Warrior didn't answer, but she knew:

Void sickness.

* * *

"What happened?" Martha asked, her voice shaking with concern and worry as she saw the Doctor struggling to drag Warrior and Avery's limp bodies to the TARDIS'. "Oh my God, are they dead?"

"Nope, just unconscious. Well, Avery's dead, but not really and Warrior – I think Warrior introverted."

"What does that mean?"

"She took shelter inside her own mind. Took Avery there too."

"How can she do that?"

"I dunno," the Doctor admitted.

"But you're both Time Lords, can't you do the same kind of things?" Martha demanded, helping him with the bodies.

"Not even close. Oi! You!" the Doctor shouted to a Tak meandering about. "Do a god a favor, will you?"

"So what do you mean, not even close?" Martha asked again when they'd gotten Avery and Warrior into her TARDIS. "And why is her TARDIS so different from yours."

"Okay, easy question first: A TARDIS takes on the personality of its Time Lord. But somehow, Warrior managed to link herself up to hers."

"I am not only hers," the TARDIS said, making both human and Time Lord jump. "She is also mine."

"It can talk?" Martha asked.

"You can talk!" the Doctor exclaimed excitedly. "Oh, that clever girl."

"She is, isn't she?" the TARDIS said, sounding proud.

"How is it doing that?" Martha asked, looking around the violet cabin as if she could see the mouth that was speaking.

"Warrior had a piece of the TARDIS, a piece of you," the Doctor amended, speaking to the ship, "and she said that it wasn't just part of her ship, it was a part of her too. Somehow, she merged herself with this TARDIS. I don't know how she did it."

"She did it because she is gifted," the TARDIS answered for him. "My Warrior can do things that even you cannot imagine, Doctor."

"But how?" Martha asked. The Doctor waited, but the ship was silent. He took it as his cue to explain.

"On Earth, there are people who are exceptional – they stand out, even among a species as magnificent as humans. They're artistic, intelligent, strong, brave, what have you. But some of these people are recognized for their differences, yeah? Well Warrior is like that, only on a Time Lord standard. Her mind...well, no one really knows the extend of her power. Everyone knew who she was, but the stories are all different. I don't know why she can do the things that she can, but she was the pride and joy of my race." The Doctor's face darkened for a moment. "But they had to spoil it. Turn her into a soldier. Waste all the potential she had. Warrior could've been anything. She's already a god – she could've managed the entire universe all on her own. But the council, I guess, wouldn't have that."

"No," the TARDIS agreed. "They wouldn't." The ship paused for a moment, the entire cabin flashing mauve. "Something is wrong!" it insisted. The Doctor leaped up, checking the scanners for any anomalies in the Vortex. "Not with me, with my Warrior!"

"Doctor!" Martha cried, kneeling next to Warrior's unconscious body. "Something's happening. Her pulse is dropping. I think...I think one of her hearts has stopped!" The Doctor leaped up, pacing.

"Think. What could be happening," he shouted at himself, frantically rubbing his fingers through his hair. "Think, think, think!"

"Doctor!" Martha said, snapping him back to reality. "I – I think she's... scared." And it was true. Warrior was twitching now, her fingers grasping for something to hold on to, her eyes twitching beneath their sockets. "But she's so fierce – what's she got to be afraid of? When she's got all that power?"

"Power! Power!" the Doctor exclaimed, slapping his hand against his forehead before going very still. "Oh no."

"What is it, Doctor? What's she fighting?" the TARDIS demanded.

"The only thing a person like Warrior could be scared of."

"And that would be?" Martha nudged him on impatiently.

"What-If's."

* * *

**Thank you to all the lovelies who read and reviewed. And a super-special thank you to _memyshadow: _Darling, this chapter is for you; thanks for giving me the idea for bringing Avery into Warrior's mind! You are amazing. And to the rest of y'all: I will be dedicating a chapter to a reviewer every chapter, so send me a long, critical (nicely) or just heartwarming review and the next chapter could be yours!**

**~Fae**


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: **Now that I've gotten so many reviews from you lovely people, I'm going to be answering what you say in said reviews, so if you have a question, it'll be answered here. (Dedications will be at the bottom, like before.) So super special thanks to **_Rwy'n-Y-Blaidd-Drwg_** (I love, love, LOVE you're username, by the way. Fantastic, just fantastic, to quote Nine. And thank you. I love my OCs, but try not to make them Mary Sue's. I hate Mary Sue's. And I am a Doctor-Rose shipper as well, never fear. The Doctor is nowhere near a romantic interest. I shudder to see who would win the battle for the pants in that relationship. As for staying in character, I honestly don't know. It's something I've always been good at, unhelpful as that is.),**_ T. R. Myers_** (Your insight into the series has been an enormous help and I will definitely be relying on you in the future, so thank you for that.), **_memyshado_**w (Tu español es excelente. Unfortunately, that is the extent of mine. But you nailed it: Warrior's mind is very Minas Tirith. And you do get a little Martha/Doctor companionship in this chapter, never fear! I'm eager to see what differences you can come up with of the two. Yes, Void Sickness will be explained, in time.),**_ burningdownthehouse_ **(I completely made the What-Ifs up, but I hope you enjoy them! Thanks for reviewing!)

* * *

"Are you kidding?" Martha asked in the sudden silence. "A What-If? Because, Doctor, that sounds like a bad superhero villain."

"Oh, they're real all right. Died, centuries ago. Take everything you've done, all your mistakes, failures, everything and use it against you. What has Warrior got to fear than the memory of her past mistakes? But they died. Found a nice black hole to crawl into and died out, the whole species. Suicidal, the lot of them." The Doctor stood, pacing, trying to think. "But that's impossible – but it's the only thing that makes _sense!"_

"Doctor, she's getting worse," Martha warned, as Warrior's long limbs began to twitch and spasm. Her lips moved, frantically trying to form words, but for some reason, in sleep, Warrior seemed unable to speak.

"But how. What-If's died out, they're extinct – unless..." Cold understanding dawned on the Doctor's face. "You're connected to Warrior, yeah?" The Doctor said, now talking to the TARDIS.

"Yes."

"I need some kind of biometric link – something that can get a message to her. I've got to get into that absurdly thick skull of hers."

"I have what you need." A long black cable dropped down from the ceiling of the ship.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Martha demanded. "How can she be fighting them if they're all dead?"

"You know when you have a nightmare?" the Doctor explained quickly, running a hand through his hair. "A terrible, terrible nightmare and you can't forget it for days afterwards? And then, years later, out of the blue, you remember and it's like having the dream all over again? Being _scared_ all over again? This is like that. Wherever Warrior and Avery are in her mind, they're too close to her memories. The _one_ thing in the universe she's afraid of and they've just stumbled across it." The Doctor paused for a moment, his eyes far away. "To only be scared of one thing...then have it plague your mind..."

"Doctor!" Martha shouted in warning, snapping the Gallifreyan out of his reverie as she was thrown across the cabin by Warrior's spasms. "If you're going to do something you've got to do it now. I don't know how long her hearts can take this!"

"Right," the Doctor said, pressing the cables to his temples.

"This will hurt," the TARDIS said to him, speaking through the wires so that only he could hear. "And you lied. It is not a memory she is fighting."

"I know," the Doctor murmured softly. "And I know. But Warrior is fighting Void Sickness manifesting itself as her worst fear, I think she's hurting more."

* * *

"Oh my God," Avery said, looking on the creature, dark eyes filled with horror and disgust. "It's..."

"Disgusting, I know," Warrior said, grabbing his hand. "You can gawk later. Now come with me, now!" She hauled him away from the monster – a gelatinous _thing_ that looked like an Earthly millipede, but only in the loosest sense of the word. Headless and black as pitch with no discernible head, the creature seemed to be always shifting, moving, oozing, as if it were made out of thick, black tar. Warrior dragged Avery under an awning of the golden temple.

"Stay here." Avery opened his mouth to protest but Warrior cut him off, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Avery. For once, please listen to me. If this thing kills you, you're gone. And I did _not_ go to all this trouble keeping you alive for you to die here.

"But – "

"No. No buts. Don't make me get inside your head and keep you here by force. Because that would be all kinds of Inception and a pain in the ass to maintain. Now. You're going to stay out of the way, you're going to live, and then you and me, we're going to see the universe. I've got lots of plans and interspacial travel agents are a bitch to cancel on, so _stay put_." Warrior didn't give him the chance to argue, but drew her swords with the wonderful, familiar hiss of metal and ran back out to confront the creature.

"Ah, the one-woman army," the oozing thing said, its voice a raspy hiss. "Protecting your pet human?"

"The last person to call him that," Warrior said conversationally, "died."

"Oh yes." In an instant, the oily monster vanished, to be replaced by a replica of the Tak king. "You killed the king of the Crystal Sea. Now what will those thoughtless Tak do without their leader. The image shifted to a burning planet, the beautiful blue oceans boiling, the bodies of charred Tak floating on the surface like fish that had had their baggies shaken too hard. "Too bad. Theirs was a wold of wonders. But what of the others you've let die? Who are you to play God, to intervene and stand aloof at your pleasure?" The creatures shifted, so fast that Warrior could barely track its movements – even with her vision. Death after death she saw paraded in front of her – the people she'd tried to save, the ones she'd chosen to leave behind. She saw the worlds she'd fought so hard to save burn anyway – the ones she chose to die destroyed because she didn't act. Or, worse, she saw their fruition. The beauty of the planets that she'd let die. What could've been. Warrior slashed viciously at the mirage, but it simply shifted around her blade and presented images even worse than before.

"Stop," Warrior said, her voice horribly weak, dropping to her knees and pressing her palms to her temples. "Stop it."

"Why?" the creature taunted her. "So you can kill me like you've killed all of them? So many deaths; so, so many. Violence and death follow in your wake. But how long until they all catch up to you?"

"Long enough," a familiar, angry, British voice snarled, barreling into the creature. In an instant, the images vanished, the gelatinous monster taking its place once more. Swinging its massive, writhing tail the creature sent Avery flying through the air. Warrior cried out, but was distracted when the monster spoke again.

"Pathetic human," the creature hissed. "And how useless have you become, little Time Lord, that you need this worthless life-form to protect you."

"Not worthless." Warrior head snapped up at the Doctor's voice booming from the sky. "I hate it when people say that. Why does everyone hate humans? They're so resourceful, they are."

"Keep your opinions to yourself, Doctor," Warrior grumbled, pulling herself to her feet.

"Oh, good, so you can hear me. Warrior, it's the Sickness. It's targeting your fears. What-If's died out centuries ago. You know that." And she did. Suddenly, Warrior was embarrassed – embarrassed that her weakness. Embarrassment that quickly turned into anger.

"Oh," she said coldly, turning back towards the creature. "You must be the most idiotic being in the universe. Because you made two very, very fatal errors."

"What were those?"

"You didn't kill me when you had the chance, for starters," Warrior said with a smile of chilled steel. "And then, you pissed me off." Without so much as tensing her muscles, Warrior was running, flying at the creature so fast that it didn't have time to shift before she cleaved it in two. It died without a sound, save for the squishing of tar pooling on the ruddy grass. "This is _my_ mind, bitch."

"Yeah, mistake number three: messing with her human. Warrior's a bit possessive."

"He's already dead, Doctor. And would you all _stop_ calling him that? I don't refer to Martha as yours."

"But she is mine," the Doctor protested immediately. "You get Avery and I get Martha. No trading."

"I don't know if I'm amused or offended by this conversation," Avery said to the sky where the Doctor's voice came from, rolling his shoulder.

"I'm amused," the Doctor's voice said cheerfully. Warrior grinned.

"Yo, Doc, is his body healed yet? You know what they say about spending too much time in your own head."

"You're good to go." A pause. "And don't ever call me 'Doc.'"

"Whatever you say, Professor," Warrior said, smirking. She nodded at the pasture and a shining, iridescent door appeared. "You okay?" she asked Avery, eyes wide and worried.

"Fine. This is all just mental, isn't it? And if you could get us out of here, why didn't you?" Avery asked, nodding at the door.

"Well excuse me for not thinking of it," Warrior growled, but her eyes were light. "Besides, if I threw you back into your body when it wasn't healed, you'd just die, so we had to stay. And now we have to leave."

"But I want to – " Avery started as they walked through the door.

"No."

"But can I – "

"Nope." Warrior grinning, shoving him through the doorway. "No, you can't play with the time and space orbs anymore. Oh, don't pout. My God, it's like telling a child he can't play with toys anymore."

* * *

Warrior blinked and she was on the floor of her ship.

"Ow," she grumbled, standing and stretching out the soreness in her limbs. "Note to self: introvert somewhere soft next time."

"Or don't at all," the Doctor suggested, surging forward to wrap her in a hug.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?" Warrior said, grinning ear-to-ear. "Yo, Avery, get up!" The human flinched awake, his dark eyes blinking rapidly before he saw where they were.

"That is disconcerting."

"No kidding," Warrior said. "Try having it all go down in your head. I'm going to have a headache for weeks. Oh, and Doc, we might want to get out of here. And soon."

"Right," the Doctor said, nodding and moving to exit Warrior's TARDIS. Martha began to follow him when Warrior stopped her. Martha froze, expected to be threatened, cursed or yelled at.

"Did I do that?" Warrior asked instead, touching a bruise forming on her cheek. "While I was out?"

"Yeah," Martha said, shrugging. "I tried to hold you down. Bad idea, considering you're an alien that's stronger than I'll ever be, but I wasn't thinking straight."

"That looks nasty." Warrior plucked some salve out of a cubby in the wall of the ship and handed it to her. "This'll clear it right up. Stop the pain too."

"Warrior, I'm – " Martha tried after a moment of silence.

_Stop._ Warrior said mentally, stopping Martha cold. _Don't apologize about Avery. He's stubborn as hell. Even _I_ can't tell him when to do sometimes. Don't beat yourself up about it, you did what you could and I appreciate that._ Martha nodded, leaving the ship with the Doctor.

"So, ready to go are we?" the Doctor asked, appearing on the ship's monitor as soon as he'd fired up his own TARDIS.

"Mind towing me along, Doctor?" Warrior asked. "My engine's fried."

"You got it." Both Warrior and Avery stumbled as the TARDIS was pulled along into the Vortex instead of flying on its own.

"How the engine die?" Avery asked, still stretching out his muscles. Rigor mortis was death on the joints.

"Well, see, I was using all my energy keeping you alive...and the TARDIS was keeping me alive." Warrior said reluctantly. He wasn't going to take this well.

"You could've _died_?" Avery demanded. "I thought that you regenerated!"

"Not if I die before regeneration," Warrior explained. "And being trapped in my own head while my body dies counts, unfortunately."

"How long?"

"What?"

"How long did you have before the ship couldn't sustain you anymore?" Avery wasn't angry anymore, now he was quiet. Scary quiet.

"'Bout a minute? Maybe two? Maybe. Don't know. Never tried that before, but I can't say it wasn't a worthwhile experiment." Suddenly Avery was very close to her, grabbing onto her forearms and Warrior had to bite her lip to keep from snarling. He was now playing a very, _very_ dangerous game.

"Don't you ever do that again." Avery spat. "If it ever comes down to me or you, you pick you. You are one of the very last of your kind, Warrior, and the Doctor just found you. If you die, it'll kill him. The universe needs you far more than it will ever need me."

"And guess what, Earth boy?" Warrior countered. "You're the _only_ one of your kind. You aren't supposed to exist. But I've got a time machine and a whole universe to explore. You helped me find my people, I'll be damned if I don't return the favor. Besides," Warrior said, her voice softer now, "if you died, I'd be alone again." Avery didn't answer, so Warrior couldn't be sure that he'd even heard her, but it didn't matter, because the Doctor popped up on her monitor again.

"Here we are!" he said chipperly. "Cardiff!"

"Why, exactly, are we in Cardiff?" Avery asked, sound as if nothing had happened.

"There's a rift in time and space here," Warrior said immediately, moving to the control panel and throwing the engines wide open. "We can suck in some of the radiation into the engines and be good to go for a while."

"And go, all powered up," the Doctor informed them. Warrior swore violently as she was jerked aside, thrown into the wall as her TARDIS, being towed by the Doctor's, was forced into motion.

"What's that?" Martha demanded.

"We're accelerating," the Doctor said.

"Into the future," Warrior finished for him, her eyes frantically scanning the readouts coming up on the projecting screens. "Convert to holo-mode!" Warrior demanded, watching as the diagrams jumped off of the screens as holograms, dancing around her.

"Where are we going?" Avery asked, holding onto the control panel like his life depended on it. Warrior's mind whirled as the TARDIS' moved faster and faster into the future. She slammed her fist on the "projection" option, hoping to pinpoint their destination.

"That's impossible," the Doctor said from his ship.

"We're going to the end of the universe," Warrior murmured.

* * *

**This chapter is lovingly dedicated to T.R Meyers for helping me with some background information and offering to Beta for me! Thanks, man, I truly appreciate it. As for the rest of you wonderful readers, please review for the chance to have the next chapter dedicated to you!**

**~Fae**


	13. Chapter 13

"Where the hell are we?" Avery demanded once the TARDIS had finally stopped shaking.

"The end of the universe." Warrior answered, checking the readouts on the monitors.

"What does that _mean_?"

"She does not know," the TARDIS said when Warrior didn't reply. "Not even the Time Lords went this far forward."

"Why?"

"Because we like to think that we're eternal," Warrior said sourly. "Everyone likes to think that they'll live forever; no one wants to believe that they'll eventually die." Warrior unsheathed her swords, striding to the door before looking back. "Well aren't you coming?" Warrior braced herself, unsure of what she'd find outside the doors of her ship. But it looked just like any other planet. Gloomy, dusty and not very populated, it seemed.

"Well, the end of the universe," Martha said, exiting the Doctor's ship. "Oh my God, Doctor!" There was a man on the ground, unconscious. Both Martha and Avery ran to his side, while the Time Lords stood off.

"I can't get a pulse," Martha said frantically. "Hold on, you've got that medical kit..." she ran into the Doctor's TARDIS, coming back seconds later. "Bit odd, though. That coat's not very 'hundred-trillion.' It looks more like World War II."

"I think he came with us," the Doctor said. Warrior's eyes cut to him, recognizing the recognition in the Doctor's voice. He knew who the man was. "Clinging to the outside of the TARDIS. All the way through the Vortex. Well, that's very him."

"Someone you traveled with?" Warrior suggested.

"A long, long time ago."

"I will never understand your habit of picking up strays."

"Hey!" Martha and Avery said sharply in unison. "Doctor, I'm sorry, but there's nothing." Martha said. "No heartbeat. He's dead." And then, as if to prove her wrong, the man gasped loudly, grasping at her jacket. With a snarl, Warrior leaped forward, shoving Martha and Avery out of the way and sticking her sword at the man's throat. Friend of the Doctor or not, he had been dead a second ago. Not even Avery could do that.

"Whoa now," the man said, flashing a nervous smile, still gasping slightly. "The last time a pretty girl was standing over me with swords was a _while_ back. Kinky. Captain Jack Harkness. And who are you, beautiful?"

"Oh," the Doctor said, sounding...angry? "Stop it."

"I was just saying hello." Captain Jack turned back towards Warrior with a wink and a smile. _"Hello."_

Avery chuckled darkly. "Tread lightly, mate. She'll bite your head off."

"Is he always like this?" Warrior asked, hauling the captain to his feet.

"Unfortunately," the Doctor replied. Warrior fell into line next to him, fidgeting when he smirked at her.

"What?" she hissed.

"You like Martha."

"I do not!" Warrior insisted, elbowing him in his side.

"Do to! You almost just gutted a friend of mine to protect her."

"How do you know I wasn't protecting Avery?" Warrior retorted without thinking. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"So you like _Avery_ then?" he murmured with a mischievous glint in his eye. Warrior opened her mouth before shutting it again just as quickly.

"I hate you." Warrior growled at the smirking Time Lord, then turning to glare at Captain Jack, who was staring at her.

"What?" she snapped.

"Hey, there, beautiful, no need to get snappy." Jack said, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Warrior rolled her eyes, casually twirling a knife at her fingertips.

"Call me that one more time and you'll lose a hand. " Warrior promised, her voice light, making the words themselves even more menacing. "'Beautiful' is not my name."

"Then what is it, gorgeous?" Jack asked with a wink. Warrior surged forward, stopped only by a light hand on her shoulder. Avery, his black eyes telling her to cool it. Warrior grumbled to herself, swearing in Gallifreyan.

"The Warrior," the Doctor answered, just as Avery said, "Her name is Warrior." Jack looked between the two Time Lords, his eyes growing wide and the smirk vanishing.

"You found her. Doctor...you found another?"

_More like I found him_. Warrior projected into Jack's mind. But instead of making him nervous – her intention – the captain rushed towards her with a look of joy, hugging her fiercely. Warrior stiffened before pushing him away.

"She's not a hugger," Martha added helpfully.

"And _you_ are?" Jack asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Martha Jones," she replied, blushing.

"Pleasure to meet you, Martha Jones,"

"Oi, cut it out," Warrior and the Doctor said at the same time.

"They really are the same species." Warrior glared. But there was something else besides the captain that caught her attention. Call it instinct, or premonition, but whatever it was, Warrior was uneasy all of a sudden.

_I'm going to look around, _she projected, unsheathing her swords and heading off.

"Does she always do that?" Jack asked, walking the female Time Lord run off.

"Do you hit on anything with a pulse?" the Doctor countered.

* * *

Warrior didn't get far. Whoever had lived here, they were long-gone now. All around her she could see the remains of what looked to be hives or colonies in the rockbeds of the planet. But they were all gone now, abandoned. Dead.

"Human," a voice from a few years back said. Warrior turned, her eyes falling on what seemed to be a humanoid creature with fierce eyes, pointed teeth and a tattooed face.

"Not even a little bit." Warrior replied, pointing her sword at it.

"Human!" the creature snarled, advancing towards her. Warrior didn't reply this time, her arm whipping through the air faster than the eye could follow. Seconds later, a knife buried itself in the chest of the humanoid thing, but it was too late. Even as it died, it was screaming that she was a human. Others that she couldn't see took up the cry and the ground shook under the weight of suddenly pounding feet. Warrior snarled under her breath as the fastest of the group caught up to her, cutting them down with ease, but there were too many of them. _Shit_, she swore, slicing through another one of them before racing away.

"We've got problems." Warrior said, skidding to a stop before the others.

"We're at the end of the universe. That's a problem," the Doctor said flippantly.

"_Humans_!" Warrior's head snapped up and she cursed her lack of forethought for not bringing her crossbow with her.

"Those kind of problems."

"What did you _do_?"

"I didn't do anything!" Warrior shouted. "And I resent that. But now's not the time, so shut up and _run_!"

"Oh," Jack said as they ran, "I've missed this."

"There!" Warrior shouted, pointing out a man running towards them, a crowd of the creatures behind him as well.

"I've got you!" Jack said, grabbing hold of the man and pulling out his gun.

"Jack, don't you dare!" the Doctor warned. The captain switched gears, pointing the gun straight up into the air and firing. In an instant, the mob of creatures stilled.

"I've got a ship," the Doctor told the frantic man. "It – "

"Mobbed," Warrior said, pointing to their own group of creatures that were swarming the path they'd run.

"We need to get to the silo," the man insisted. "If we get to the silo, we're safe."

"Then _come on_!" Warrior snarled, slicing her sword through one of them when it got too close.

"Warrior!" the Doctor shouted sharply.

"Oh, shut up and run!" The man led the way along the dirt path to a chain-link fence.

"Show me your teeth!" the guard said. "Show me your teeth."

_LET US IN! _Warrior screamed in her mind. The guard's mouth went slack for a moment before he started to open the gate.

"Human, let them in!" The guards scrambled to open the gate. Warrior growled through her teeth, leaping up onto the wall while the others waiting, kicking up a dust cloud when she landed and ignoring the deep gouges in her arms from the barbed wire. She wrenched the gates open before snapping them shut.

"Humans," one of the creatures growled. "Humani. Our feast."

"Go back where you came from," the guard said, not sounding at all intimidating, his gun raised.

"I see you're not telling him to put his gun down," Jack grumbled under his breath.

"He's not my responsibility," the Doctor returned.

"And I am? That's a change."

"I see you," the creature said, looking right at Martha. "I'm hungry."

"And I'm pissed." Warrior snarled, shoving the guard out of the way and sending another knife spinning at the creature, lodging itself in his chest. The male gurgled and fell, the rest of the mob backing of, tuning tail and running away.

"Let's get you inside," the guard said nervously, eyeing Warrior. She glared back at him.

"You can't _do _that," the Doctor said, pulling Warrior aside once they were inside the silo.

"They were going to kill us. You saw how it was threatening Martha. If you won't defend your human, then I'm going to have to," Warrior said scathingly. "I can do what I want." The Doctor glared at her, then threw his hands up and went to talk to one of the men about his ship. Warrior wasn't so much worried about her TARDIS. It could come if she called. Warrior stood apart from the rest of the group, scowling to herself, her swords whizzing through the air in wide, almost majestic arcs.

"Warrior, you know that he's right." Avery said, coming up behind her. Her swords stilled and Warrior turned, her green eyes flashing with anger.

"I know no such thing," she countered. Childish, yes. But she was _tired _of saving people and being berated for it. Were they allergic to saying "thank you" or something?

"You can't just keep killing people."

"I can and I will. You've heard of Darwin? Survival of the fittest. I've killed to save you and I will again. But, you know what? Next time just give me a shout and I'll let you get ripped apart. That way you'll be gone, but thank God my morals will still be intact." Warrior didn't say anything else, just walked away as one of the men from inside the silo led the group down a hall. Stupid humans, always getting in the way. Why did she bother saving them in the first place?

* * *

**Sorry for not updating in so long, my muse ran off. Well, I found her and dragged her back and now here you have it. Please review and give me LOTS of feedback!**

**~Fae**


	14. Chapter 14

Warrior was sulking. She was sulking and she knew that she was sulking, but she couldn't quite help it. All she seemed to do lately, she thought as she stalked through the halls of the refugee camp, the humans all quickly getting out of her way, was go around saving people – _not _something she'd been familiar with before in her life – and then they turned around and scolded her for it like she was a child, a little girl who had to be reprimanded and watched closely so that she didn't do anything foolish. Warrior ground her teeth. She was not a child anymore! She was not a _tool,_ either!

_"Are you sure she can take it, sir? Her body has undergone much, even for such a powerful specimen in the first place. _

Warrior fought the memory like she'd been fighting them since she woke up. But it was her emotions – they always had a nasty habit of dredging up what she least wanted to remember.

_"She can handle it," Warrior – Prodigy, then – remembered the cool, collected voice. It was so sure that she would be able to handle whatever was coming. But based on past experiences, she wasn't so sure. Only fifty years old, she was so young. And nothing like this had ever been done to a Time Lord before. It wasn't allowed by law to tamper with their DNA since their species was created by prolonged exposure to the Untempered Schism. Too much radical change and the DNA could unravel...or worse, create an abomination; something more powerful than the universe had ever seen._

_But when the Child Prodigy had been born, a group of scientists were called together by the leader of the Council and ordered to try it – on her. Without telling the general populace, of course. They wanted to make a weapon, something more powerful than anything in the whole of the universe, but something that they control. A young girl just happened to be the canvass as the strongest Time Lord in millions of years._

_"Injecting Sontaran DNA." The girl heard the voice, but she was more focused on the pain. She knew of the Sontarans. They were brutal warriors, killers, soldiers. _

_She didn't want to be a killer. _

_"No!" she screamed, but then she was screaming out in pain, her ability to make words lost in an endless wasteland of agony._

* * *

"Warrior!" She jumped, shaken out of the memory by a voice. The Doctor's. It took a moment for her to realize that it was all in her head. Warrior groaned, pressing the heel of her hand against her head. It hurt. She'd never had a headache before.

She'd never been sucked into a memory like that either. Warrior suddenly felt cold; that must be the Void Sickness beginning to take it's toll. She didn't reply to the Doctor, only began to make her way to the room where he and the others were – she'd been out longer than she'd realized. Humans were scrambling about excitedly, grabbing luggage and family members. This wasn't just a refugee camp, Warrior realized. It was a train station of sorts. They were getting read to leave.

But where?

"You've got a room where no man can go without dying," the Doctor was saying as Warrior entered the room. She blinked, looking at the technology surrounding her. It was...familiar, almost.

"I've got just the man," the Doctor said as Jack gasped and spluttered.

"Was someone kissing me?" Jack asked, his voice breathy.

"I've got one too." Warrior volunteered, stepping up.

"And...and who's this?" an old man with white hair asked. Warrior paused. Something was not right about him. Not right at all.

"Warrior. Time Lord." Warrior answered shortly. "Doctor, are you aware that his system is made of food?"

"Yes, but that's not the point," the Doctor said, mentally filling her in.

"Right. The point is, Avery, go with Jack." Avery crossed his arms, glaring at her.

"You leave for almost an hour and then think that you can give me orders?"

"Avery," Warrior said quietly. "One person won't be able to do it on their own, not even one who can't die, there's not enough time. I'm fine with the blood of millions on my hands, but are you?" That did it. Avery nodded, taking off immediately with Jack and the Doctor.

"You're going to need more power," Warrior said, evaluating the situation quickly.

"The Doctor assured me..." the old man said, before Warrior cut him off.

"Yes, but something sabotaged the power supply. There isn't enough power as it is right now." Warrior quickly ducked into the Doctor's TARDIS, looking for some way to boost the signal, while Martha and the blue alien creature girl used some archaic machine to contact the Doctor while Avery and Jack were battling the radiation.

"That's the TARDIS," Warrior heard Martha saying as she stepped back out. There was nothing helpful inside. Nothing of the sort. "Sports car of time travel, he calls it." Warrior could help but laugh, grinning at the three of them when the turned to look at her.

"That old thing? A sports car?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Not hardly." Warrior put two fingers to her lips, whistling a single high, keening note. In an instant, her TARDIS began to appear, taking the form of a cabinet in the corner of the room. Much less conspicuous than a blue box. "This," she said proudly, "is a sports car."

"Professor, I'm going to need your help with this one. Come on in," Warrior flung the doors open, striding to the control panel and quickly opening up the floor, watching as it folded like a paper fan to reveal the workings of the TARDIS underneath. Warrior hopped down, taking an enormous cable from the bottom. "Does this look like it will work with your power units?" No answer. "Professor?" She turned around, but the old man had gone. Warrior shrugged. It didn't matter. She could do it on her own.

"Something is wrong," the TARDIS said, flashing mauve.

"I know," Warrior replied softly. "But we can't do anything about it now and I can't seem to figure out what it is."

"You are ill."

"No shit," Warrior bit the words as they exited her mouth. "I've got Void Sickness and it's making me crazy." Crazi_er_. "I'm having memories."

"Chan – Professor – tho!" Warrior snapped out of her pity party in an instant, grabbing her swords and rushing out of the TARDIS. Or she would've, if the door hadn't suddenly been locked. "Chan – what are you doing – tho?" The alien's voice was wrought with terror and surprise.

"Let me out!" Warrior shouted, banging on the door, but it was deadlocked. "What the hell!"

"Confidential," the TARDIS answered, not sounding like itself, more like it had been before they had become one. The protocol had be to old, antiquated. But what order had she put in when she was that young? Warrior could remember clearly all of the changes she had made to the TARDIS...and this was only to happen if...

"Oh no." Warrior whispered aloud. _"Shit!" _Immediately, she pounded on the keyboard, her fingers flying over the holographic Gallifreyan symbols like her life depended on it. But it wasn't her life that she was worried about. "Override mike-alpha-sierra-tango-echo-romeo! Now!" She smashed the hacker key into the TARDIS's dashboard, her eyes suddenly glowing blue, images traveling through, so clear that they could be seen as if through glass. Everything the TARDIS had been hiding poured into her mind, though it fought, it's protocols dictating that she wasn't to leave the ship, wasn't to have any contact with the outside of the ship, at any costs. The shields had been put up, keeping all sounds from the outside from coming within. "Let me _out_, dammit!" Warrior shouted, practically breaking the doors down when she finally heard it unlocking. "Disable all antiquated protocols!" she shouted on her way out.

"Doctor!" Warrior said urgently, but it was too late. The professor – who wasn't really a professor – had already gotten into the Doctor's TARDIS and had locked the doors. The Doctor was trying to get him out of the ship while Avery, Jack and Martha held off the human-like creatures who'd somehow gotten into the compound and were now straining to get into the room they'd barricaded themselves in.

Warrior knew who he was. A Time Lord. And not just any Time Lord. There was no way her ship would've locked her inside for anyone else. "No," she hissed, pounding on the door. "No!"

"You're a liar, Doctor!" the professor shouted from within said, sounding triumphant. "If she's still alive, then so are the rest of them. Their greatest weapon, of course she survived! Ha!"

"They're gone!" Warrior screamed desperately. "They're all gone and we're the only ones left! Come out, come back! Please!"

"Saying please?" the Time Lord said, with a manic laugh. "How unlike you! Say it again. Say my name."

"Please, Master," Warrior whispered. "Please."

"Tough!"

"No!" Warrior shouted, just as Martha screamed the same. The creatures were forcing the door open and there was nothing the three humans could do about it anymore.

"Warrior, help!"

"Get into my TARDIS!" Warrior ordered. "I'll hold them off." The humans hesitated; the Doctor was still doing something-or-other with his sonic screwdriver, something to his ship. "Go!" Warrior lunged forward, her swords pointed towards the doors, forcing the trio to get out of the way or get skewered.

Four of the creatures fell by her blade before the Doctor dragged her to her ship, still fighting, though the opponents had retreated, fearing the ferocity in her eyes and her battle cry that was so old, so hideously angry, and so fearsome that it was nearly a tangible thing.

"Follow my TARDIS," the Doctor dictated. Warrior was still fighting invisible enemies, her eyes glazed with battle-lust, her vision rimmed red. No...no!

"Warrior!" the Doctor said, having Jack and Avery hold her back by her arms, and Martha gingerly take her swords. "Warrior, how did you know him! He knew you! You knew who he was, how did you know!" The Doctor wasn't playing around. His fury wasn't as violent as hers, but it was fury all the same and the fury of a Time Lord was the most feared thing in all the universe.

Warrior took a deep breath, trying to clear the fog, trying to force it all to make sense. "I know him because...because, the Master...he's my brother."


End file.
